Katie the Scrapbook Lady

How do you roundup a month like that one?

 

Um, wow! May was probably the craziest month I’ve had in a long time (maybe ever?) and I have to admit that I’ve been feeling overwhelmed just thinking about doing my roundup. But I feel like it’s extremely important to answer these questions and round up the memories of the month, especially since I took a big blogging break at the end and don’t have all of this documented yet. So here goes…

 

What reading/learning did I do this month? (books, blogs, magazines, ebooks, podcasts, classes, etc.)

I’m not done with this book yet, but I’ve been listening to it on audio and studying it on my iPad (kindle book version) because we discussed it for this episode of The Digi Show with Ali Edwards as our guest. It’s been a really interesting book to think about and I have to say that it has changed my perspective on some big topics like shame and vulnerability. I think it’s a really amazing book!

When I tell you about the rest of my month, I think you will understand why I don’t have much else to list in this category.

 

What entertainment did I watch/listen to this month? (movies, tv shows, plays, music, concerts, etc.)

The big deal for us in May was Survivor. We had fallen behind but we wanted to catch up in time for the finale so we had a major marathon. We were so excited with who won! It was the person we were rooting for and we felt like it was really the right outcome.

 

We saw Ironman 3 in the movie theaters. It was pretty intense and violent, but also funny and entertaining. I love Robert Downey Jr. and he does such a good job in that role!

 

What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?

My entire family came to Utah because my youngest brother got married. We had many memorable moments because of this great event and my family’s visit. We played games, watched Studio C., and went out to eat a lot since my house was mostly packed up.

I love this picture of my brother Zach and my parents. Isn’t that a great smile on his face? I also love this silly one with my brother Mike, my son Alex, Zach’s new brother-in-law, and my hubby all holding (and almost dropping) Zach!

 

My daughter also went to her first formal school dance event. I know I’m biased, but I think she looked absolutely stunning! She also finished off her first full semester in a public high school and got straight A grades!

 

More fun:

• visited with some of my aunts and uncles that I haven’t seen in several years
• met my new sister-in-law’s family who all flew here from Tennessee
• hubby and I went to a play with 3 other couples and out for treats after
• played board games with my kids

 

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

One of the highlights of the month was the pile of old pictures that my aunt brought to my Dad when she came to visit for Zach’s wedding. I wanted to scan all of them before my parents left to go back home to New Mexico, so I scanned like a crazy lady for a few hours one night and now I have a wonderful treasure!

 

As a wedding gift, we gave Zach and Jenn a catered family dinner the night before their wedding. It really turned out nice and the food was delicious!

 

We gave a lot of our gently used furniture from our old house to the Utah Shakespeare Festival to be used in the apartments they provide for their actors. There were many pieces that wouldn’t work well in our new home, and we wanted to change bed sizes for a few of our bedrooms.

 

Jeff bought me a giant fork for Mother’s Day (it made him think of Everybody Loves Raymond). We all thought it was hilarious! Now I want a big spoon to go with it though.

 

Riley gave me some nice body scrub and Alex made me an obligatory homemade dealio.

 

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

A house! I think it’s safe to say that it is the biggest purchase I’ve ever made! I can’t include my hubby in that statement because he has bought more expensive stuff because of business dealings. We also bought a lot of stuff to go in the house:

• a new washer and dryer
• a new refrigerator (won’t be delivered until mid-June)
• a new mattress set for us (we upgraded to a king bed)
• a new bedroom set for us, which has now been returned.
• a new mattress for Alex (he upgraded to a double bed)
• a new bedframe (won’t be delivered until mid-June) and a new nightstand for Alex
• a new set of office furniture for me
• a formal dining room table and chairs (delivered in mid-June)
• a desk for Riley
• closet organizers

We’ve been saving up for years for all of these purchases. It’s kind of sad to see all that money leave our bank account, but I’m truly grateful that we didn’t need to take on any debt for these things.

 

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

I ended up having minor gum surgery and a major root canal. I couldn’t chew anything for about 5 days so I lived off of smoothies.

Even  though I still have a bit of an issue with my shoulder, it didn’t bother me much during the month of May. That really is quite amazing since I literally had to do a lot of heavy lifting. Maybe moving was just the right physical therapy plan!

 

What were my accomplishments this month?

Besides all the wedding, school, and house stuff, I released 2 big paper packs and 2 template sets, complete with free gifts and videos for all of them! You can watch any of these videos on my free vimeo channel or here are the links to each individual video and the related blog post (some of them have free gifts in the post):

• how to use layered templates in PSE
• how to mix and match digital papers
• how to scrap double page spreads with templates
• how to scrap with lots of layers on a template

 

I created 12 digital layouts (each image is linked to original post where it first appeared)

          

 

I wrote 8 posts for The Daily Digi and one post for Capturing Magic. I was a co-host for 5 episodes of The Digi Show.

 

I wrote 5 posts for Toy to the World and made plans for many more to come. I also completely redesigned the website so be sure to take a look around!

 

What were my disappointments this month?

It’s hard to complain about anything in a month that brought me so many good things, but I did have a few bumps in the road:

• Moving was hard! Not just the turmoil of it, but the actual physical labor involved and I even hired movers. I had prepared from so many months that I didn’t think it would be that tough at the end, but I was actually working like crazy right up until the moment the new owners of our home arrived at the front door.
• Our house was not (and still isn’t) completely done when we moved in. I’ve mentioned how many deadlines have fallen apart in our home building process, and it still seems to be the case. Part of it is because we are insisting that things should be done right. Part of it is because it’s just been a big project and it takes awhile to get everything squared away. I’m currently working with about 3 contractors each day. I feel like a building foreman and I don’t like it!
• Meltdowns. I knew this would all be really tough for everyone, especially for the guy in my life who has autism. It was hard and then some. I feel bad for putting him through it. I might have had a few meltdown moments of my own.

 

Anything else noteworthy to include?

Things are looking up! We ended up with a beautiful new home and lots of wonderful new things. All of our real estate transactions were easy and smooth. It was almost too good to be true. School is out and summer is going to be fun! I’m so excited to be settling down into our new place.

 

I’m proud of myself for getting my roundup done! Have you done your roundup yet? You can start at any time – you’ll be glad you did!

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Reality bytes

Obviously, I’m still not quite together these days. As I looked around our new home this morning (which I love), I saw some funny little vignettes of our current reality and immediately thought of the title “reality bytes” because of the bits and bytes (I’m a digi gal) of our new “normal”. I snapped some quick pics with my iPhone and thought you might enjoy seeing some glimpses of what my world looks like today.

 

My side of the master bedroom. I haven’t unpacked my stuff for several reasons: 1) been too busy working on family spaces like the kitchen 2) too tired by the time I head into our room at night 3) We don’t have any bedroom furniture and no shelves in our closets (we are having closet organizers built)

 

Ok, the furniture thing is complicated. We actually bought a new bedroom set because we decided to upgrade to a king size bed now that we have a little bigger bedroom. We picked out this set online and I think it looks nice. My husband didn’t like it in person though. I kept telling him to get over it. For several reasons, the entire set is being picked up for return today.

 

The biggest reason we are returning the set is because we picked out a sleep number mattress set and the frame doesn’t work inside our bed frame because there are drawers in the wooden bed frame. The mattress delivery guys actually thought this was a good solution – can you imagine? When I asked them what I should do about the space between the mattress and the bedframe, they seriously suggested that a dust ruffle would be a good solution. Oh, and I guess we would need to pole vault into bed. lol!

 

We had to leave our bookshelf system in our old house as part of the sale, so right now I have tons of piles of books and nowhere to put them. I know these are total first world problems, but they are still inconvenient.

 

More books – most of these are cookbooks. Not sure where I’m going to put these.

 

I have all my spice jars sitting out on my kitchen counter while I try to find a home for them. Of course, they are all alphabetized but my husband thinks it's funny to mess with my mind by putting them out of order. He said that he thinks I’ve spent more time alphabetizing the spices than I have spent using them. He might be right. lol!

 

We’ve got several young friends that are graduating from high school right now. I’m going to send out some cards today.

 

I went to the dentist yesterday and I still have my little goodie bag sitting out on our counter.

 

Oh, and a huge pile of mail on the counter! I need to change our address with so many different people and companies. Notice all the Comcast envelopes – I can now report that after about 8 hours of pleading with their customer service department to finally get our phone working. Ugh.

 

What bits and bytes of reality are you looking at today? Pull out your camera, or your smartphone and document it. Even if it’s messy!

Time to roundup May!

I’m heading into my 8th year of using my roundup tool at the end of each month and I can say without any hesitation that it has been the single most useful memory keeping tool I’ve ever used! All you need to do is to answer a few questions at the end of each month. Jot down your answers on a blog, in a journal, or in a word document – whatever works for you. Don’t worry if you miss a month, you can start again at any time. Of course, the more months you do your roundup, the more you will have to refer back to. Before you know it, you will have a monthly index to help you reference your own life!

I love to look back through my past roundups. You can find a complete index of all of my previous roundups if you want some ideas for your own inspiration.

 

• What reading/learning did I do this month? (books, blogs, magazines, ebooks, podcasts, classes, etc.)
• What entertainment did I watch/listen to this month? (movies, tv shows, plays, music, concerts, etc.)
• What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?
• What gifts did I give and/or receive?
• What special or unusual purchases did I make?
• What illnesses or health concerns did I have?
• What were my accomplishments this month?
• What were my disappointments this month?
• How did I do on my goals for the month? (Or any current short or long term goals)
• Anything else noteworthy to include?

 

These are the 10 questions that I use as prompts for each roundup. I don’t always answer every single question, but I find that they help me explore and record the memories of the past month in a simple and concise way.

Sometimes I answer the roundup questions with a bullet list, and other times I may write a paragraph or even more explaining the events that occurred. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to do a roundup, just try to include as much detail as you want to remember. You can add more questions if you want or you can choose to answer only a few, feel free to customize this tool to best meet your needs.

If you want a little roundup pride badge (I love badges!) to display on your own roundup post, feel free to copy and paste this one. I'd also love it if you would link back to this post or my blog when you share your roundup so people know where to find the idea.

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It’s all a little chaotic still

Were you starting to wonder if I was ever coming back? I honestly wondered that myself some days. It’s been a super crazy ride as we’ve transitioned to our new house. In fact, it still is pretty chaotic around here as the house isn’t quite finished yet, but we are living here and each day we get closer to done. I seem to be averaging about 3 contractor appointments each day + numerous phone calls to line up future visits. I can safely say that I never want to be a construction superintendent. No thank you!

I will have plenty to tell you about this adventure and I do promise to share some photos soon. Peppermint told me that it just wasn’t nice of me to post pictures of the construction and framing of the house and then just stop there. After all the blogging I’ve done about this process, I won’t leave you hanging like that! At least not too much longer. For now, I’m still trying to recover from the move, put things away without any closets built or very much furniture (we gave a lot of it away), and while working around painters, framers, and other contractors who are putting the finishing touches on our new home. Oh yes, it’s also the last week of school for my daughter and my son is sick.

So for now, I’m going to post the mini-memories of the past 10 days that I have been sharing on Instagram. It’s been a great way for me to document little bits of the journey without having to stop and sit down to type it all out for a blog post. It’s also been helpful to have my iPhone to use as a memory keeping tool, especially without any internet connection for an entire week!

Here’s what has been happening:

 

Alex got the perfect fortune with his lunch on the first day of our move.

 

We were able to close the deal on our old house and on our new house on the same day. There is a lot of paperwork and pen action when it comes to real estate deals!

 

I started to have serious doubts about moving when my neighbor brought me homemade lemon cupcakes with lavender icing. YUM!

 

We moved our first load on a rainy morning. I hired movers, but it was still a ton of work!

 

I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit in eating lunch that day, but a sweet friend miraculously showed up on my doorstep with a Jamba Juice for both me and Alex. How nice!

 

This is the most photogenic pile of boxes in my new house. lol! I love the way the light shines down on them and our K’nex Ferris Wheel (with Lego guys riding in the seats) ended up making me feel happy over this particular pile o’ junk. I don’t feel the same way about all the other stacks around me! We’ve already unpacked about 40 boxes and there are still many more to go. I really did get rid of a lot of stuff, but it turns out that I still have too much to unpack.

 

We handed over the keys to our old home that we have loved for 9 years. I’m very happy that the people who are moving in are so nice and that they are so excited to live there! It was a bittersweet moment though and I’m really going to miss all of those gorgeous trees while we wait for new ones to grow again. There are many benefits to building a new house, but starting over with landscaping is probably not on that list.

 

I had let the food supply dwindle over the last month so we wouldn’t have to move a lot of food. Once we moved into the new place, I had and empty refrigerator and cupboards to fill. My daughter and I went on the longest and most expensive grocery shopping trip evah! It was exhausting, but we were all happy to be able to eat in our own home again. I then spent 10 straight hours unpacking and organizing the kitchen. I decided that would make the most difference in our lives and I’m grateful that amid all of our chaos, we can at least manage to cook and eat meals right now.

 

And it turns out that my new neighbors are just as nice as my old ones. Some of them even brought me muffins and cupcakes. Score!

 

So life is chaotic around here, but it’s also very good. We are together and have started building new memories. It will take a while to find “normal” again (if we ever had it in the first place), but in the meantime, I’m just trying to enjoy the ride, even with all of it’s bumps. One of the big ones has been that the phone company hooked up our old phone number, but missed it by one number. Some poor family has been going crazy trying to get through to each other and reaching us instead. I have to say that all of our utility companies made the move very easy on us, except for Comcast. They might get a special award for the worst customer service possible when it comes to moving. Oh well, small problems when you look at the big picture.

It’s good to be back to blogging. I really missed all of you!

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It only took 448 days!

Did you know that a giraffe’s pregnancy can last anywhere between 400 to 460 days? That’s a long time to be pregnant! You know what else can take that long?

 

Ok, it’s not typical for it to take 448 days to build a new house (and yes, that is the final count!) – but that is what has happened in our case. We wrote a check on February 25, 2012 to make a deposit on a lot and a new house. We had some delays in figuring out what we wanted to do and we went through a few different floor plans, lot choices, and waiting for the builder to open up a new part of the subdivision. We got all of that worked out and we wrote an even bigger check in May of 2012 and started meeting with the architect and picking out everything for our new house. We were told that construction would begin around the end of June and we would be in our house by October. We had a great time picking out colors, cabinets, and flooring.

 

 

I started packing up some of our non-essential items and preparing our current house to go on the market once our new one was underway. June came and went. So did July, August, September, and October. Even though the subdivision had been approved, the particular parcel of land that our lot was part of became tied up with the city because a church was going to be built nearby. That led to complications and we could not start the building process until that was cleared up. Finally, in early October, we got the go-ahead that it was going to happen. We got word that construction would start around the end of the month. I got serious again about getting the house ready and packing up a few more items. I tried to work on de-cluttering and getting rid of things that we didn’t need anymore. October came and went. So did November. By the first of December, I was feeling convinced that there would never be a hole in the ground before the end of the year and that it would just keep getting put off by winter after that. It was very discouraging. We had looked for quite awhile before we ever settled on building a new house, so it felt like we had been in limbo for such a long time (and we had)!

Then, it finally happened! They started digging a hole on December 13, 2012. Of course, it happened while we were out of town for our Disneyland trip. We had been waiting around since May and then the day they started digging we were out of town! My agent snapped some pictures and emailed them to us and I really couldn’t believe it until we got back in town and I could see it for myself. Our builder has been able to complete houses in about 90 days (which is kind of miraculous) but they told us ours would take longer because there were sure to be weather delays and we were also finishing our basement. Our agent said he really thought we would be in by around the first of April. I knew that wouldn’t happen. I was just hoping we could somehow move in by the end of April so I could host a family dinner for my brother’s wedding the first weekend in May.

 

Well, we had the coldest January we’ve had in Utah since 1949 so it was the coldest winter I have ever lived through. There were a few weeks where they couldn’t pour cement. I felt terrible for the workers who were framing our house under those conditions. It was miserable to bundle up and walk through the house. More delays. We didn’t want to put our house up too early and have to move twice. We felt like it would sell quickly (it did!) and it would be too difficult on our family to move somewhere temporarily if we sold our current home. We decided to wait until about 6 weeks before the house would be finished. I knew that I needed to finish getting the house ready though and we even had a friend who said they knew of someone who was very interested in this area and wanted to move in April or May. In early February, he said that they wanted to come through and look at the home. I went into high gear of getting things done and packed up a storage pod full of stuff.

 

The friend never ended up coming to look at the house, but I’m still glad I took action because it has lessened my current workload. It became apparent that the new house would not be done before my brother’s wedding. We made arrangements to host the family dinner elsewhere. We figured that it would be completed around the end of May. We put our current house on the market in the middle of April and it went under contract 6 days later. It worked out so perfectly, that we still keep worrying it will fall through since nothing has been easy for us with this process. The buyers didn’t need to move in until the time that we were going to be ready to move out. Things started really happening on our house and we are set to finally close the deal tomorrow. Crossing all fingers and toes that everything works out!

 

So I’m knee deep in final packing and making a lot of different arrangements. We will be in transition between 2 houses over the next week as we wait for a few final projects to be completed and some new beds to be delivered before we can start sleeping in the new place. I also still don’t have an answer yet from our internet provider on when they will be able to get everything hooked up in our new house. And somehow, I need to keep life stable enough for our family (especially Alex who is struggling with all of this change) during these transitions. It’s not like we didn’t have any warning… but somehow, all the advance notice has just made us weary instead of ready. As we walked through the new place last night, we are not quite sure how everything is going to get done before we close on Friday. There is still a lot that needs to be done. It looks like it is going to be crazy til the end on this one.

So at this point, I’m not really sure of what my blogging schedule will look like over the next week or so. I will try to post when I can, but I’m going to let myself off the hook and not make any definitive promises. I’m sure I’ll post some instagram photos to document our journey to the new house. Of course, I’ll have plenty of new scenery and fun things to share in the coming months. Now I get to finally put all of those ideas I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for the last 448 days into action! Here’s to hoping for as smooth of a move as possible.

 

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