Katie the Scrapbook Lady

better late than never…my April 2013 roundup

 

I usually try to roundup the previous month no later than the 5th of the following month, but at least I’m still getting it done. Better late than never! And I’m keeping my roundup streak alive – I haven’t missed a month since January of 2006!

 

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

• Watched Once Upon a Time, a few Big Bang Theory episodes (which got too raunchy for my kids so now we are going to have to read ahead on the topic matters before watching). I also watched Alice in Wonderland on my iPad which reminds me so much of my brother when he was young and insisted on watching that movie at least once every day.

 

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

• My parents came to town for a visit during the first week of April.
• We took my parents to a Utah Jazz vs. Portland Trailblazers basketball game. The Jazz won and we had an amazing evening. My mom even got picked up (literally) by the bear. So funny!
• I went on a business lunch date with my husband at Thanksgiving Point where I got to meet with some very interesting people that he is associate with.
• We went to a late birthday brunch (for me) at my in-laws house on a Sunday morning.
• I took a tour of Stampin Up!
• My daughter had a week off of school for spring break.
• Went to a bridal shower for a family friend
• Went to a special VIP Lego event at Hogle Zoo with my son
• Worked on teaching my daughter to drive

 

What were my accomplishments this month?

Putting our house up for sale and having it go under contract 6 days later has to be the biggest accomplishment of the month! I have been working on this project for months and had the house ready to show, which is a good thing since we had a lot of interest. We had an open house where 10 different groups came through plus 7 showings all in 6 days. There was one day where we had 4 showings and Alex and I had to eat all 3 meals out of the house. It was crazy! We had a nice offer though and we took it. We don’t know much about the buyers but everything is looking good (knock on wood) to close later this month. In the meantime, we’ve also been trying to keep on top of all the construction progress on our new home. There have been some last minute changes and a few snags that came up. If all goes well, we should close on the new house at the same time that we close on our current home.

 

I started the Toy to the World blog up again and wrote 6 posts there.

 

I was a guest on episode 32 of the Capturing Magic podcast

 

I wrote 9 posts for The Daily Digi and one post for Capturing Magic. I was a co-host for 3 episodes of The Digi Show.

   

I designed 3 templates (all in the scientific set)

 

I created 9 digital layouts (each image is linked to original post where it first appeared)

         

 

Anything else noteworthy to report?

• I realized about the middle of April that my driver’s license had expired on my birthday on March 10th. Oops! I had to get that taken care of and when I took the eye test, I just barely passed it. Time for glasses!
• Another disturbing oversight on my part – I didn’t realize until the end of the first week of April that my car license plates were supposed to be renewed by the end of March. I can’t believe I did that! It’s all taken care of now. I’m thinking that I’m not dealing with a full deck lately.
• We ate out a lot. With our house being shown so much and needing to keep it in perfect condition for such events as appraisals and home inspections, I had a hard time wanting to make any sort of mess in the kitchen. Not much time for that either!
• I dropped a fair amount of change in an Archiver’s store buying paper scrapbooking supplies

 

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!

…

It’s that time again…

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.

 

 

…

Looking back on March

Ok, where did that month go? March flew by and April is already well on it’s way. I guess I better get my roundup done!

 

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

• Went to a play at Hale Center Theater (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
• Watched some Big Bang Theory (we are almost done with season 2)
• Watched Survivor and then stopped for a few weeks after an episode where someone had a giant meltdown that really upset my son. If you are a Survivor fan, I bet you will know which one I’m talking about.

 

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

• I got to meet up with some digi friends because of the Scrapbook Expo here in Utah.
• My husband and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary on the 22nd of March.
• I celebrated my birthday
• Attended a landscape design class with my daughter
• Spent a few hours observing a local courtroom with my son for a school assignment
• My parents came to visit over spring break
• Celebrated Easter

 

 

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

Just the standard shoulder issues. I continued to see a chiropractor for help with my shoulder, but it was still sore throughout the month.

 

What were my accomplishments this month?

Whipped my house into shape – In preparation for selling our house and moving, I really worked hard on our home throughout the month. I had windows cleaned, grout repaired, and filled a storage pod full of our “stuff”. Thanks to some nice weather, I was also able to get a lot of yardwork done, prep the garden with my daughter’s help, and clean the garage with my hubby’s help. My son and I took multiple carloads of things we no longer needed to donate at a charity dropoff location. We even made a visit to the dump. Stinky!

 

Designed 6 templates – including a free video tutorial on how to use layered templates and a free gift available to facebook followers.

 

  

 

Scrapped – 8 layouts (each is linked to where they originally appeared)

       

 

Wrote – 9 posts for The Daily Digi, 1 post for Capturing Magic, 7 posts on our family blog, and 20 posts on this blog.

Recorded – 4 episodes of The Digi Show with some fantastic guests like Heather Hess, Katrina Kennedy, and Chelle’s Creations.

 

Anything else noteworthy to report?

Well, I have to say that we are all pretty excited about our new house that is under construction. They made A LOT of progress on it in the month of March. Hooray!

 

Without a doubt, March 2013 was one of the most physically exhausting months I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad that I was able to accomplish so much, but I really could use a big nap. The problem is that April promises to be pretty intense as well.

 

Have you done your roundup? It’s such a great way to document and remember the everyday details of your life!

…

Time to roundup March and get going on April

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.

…

Saying adieu to February

Goodbye February 2013, it was nice knowing you. It’s time to put you to bed now with a comfy little roundup!

 

What reading/learning did I do this month?

I really enjoyed reading The President’s Club

 

I have enjoyed working through this fun ebook full of storytelling strategies for memory keepers.

 

What entertainment did I watch/listen to this month?

We watched the Grammys and ended up buying some new music after. We are really liking Mumford and Sons right now.

 

We were thrilled that the new season of Survivor started in February. We have so much fun watching it as a family and we do a lot of talking back to the screen. As always, there’s one person that is just driving us crazy and we can’t believe he hasn’t been voted out yet.

 

Alex has been really wanting to watch The Amazing Race so we started with an older season (14) and have been watching that. He loves it. I have to admit it stresses me out a bit to watch it since the show is all about hopping on planes to get places and then doing crazy things like bungee jumping off bridges. But it’s growing on me and it’s fun to watch as a family. As with any reality tv show, it’s always amazing (and a little disturbing) to witness what real people are like under pressure.

 

We are currently on season 2 of The Big Bang Theory and we end up laughing so hard when we watch it!

 

We watched the Super Bowl as a family. I love that I can sit and digiscrap during the whole thing, otherwise I would never make it. lol!

 

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

• Went to Trader Joes – first one in Utah!
• Stayed downtown one night while our wood floor was being refinished. Nice to get away from the fumes!
• Went to see the mummies at The Leonardo
• Went out to dinner with some friends.
• Took the kids to see a local high school play with some family friends.
• Had my brother and his fiancée over for dinner. We had build-your-own Mexican pizzas.
• Went to dinner with my in-laws for my sister-in-law’s birthday celebration.
• Watched Once Upon a Time with my daughter. She’s trying to get me caught up.

 

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

An amazon gift card for my sister-in-law on her birthday. A book for my son and a scarf for my daughter on Valentine’s Day.

 

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

Paid a painter to repair walls and freshen up paint in our house.

 

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

I had a pretty miserable head cold that even got into my sinuses, but I was able to fight it off with some rest and over-the-counter medications. Still struggled with my shoulder issue, but I’ve made significant improvement by going to a soft-tissue chiropractor on a weekly basis.

 

What were my accomplishments this month?

Made some big progress on prepping our house for sale. Lots of de-junking and freshening everything up!

 

Started a new Flickr group for layouts using my templates. Anyone is welcome to join and there are already close to 130 pages in the pool for lots of inspiration!

 

Scrapped – 13 layouts (2 of them are not pictured here because of personal details)

           

 

Designed – only 2 new sets of templates this month, but I also uploaded my Digi Files templates (spaces and selects) from January into my shop in case you missed those.

 

 

Wrote – 8 posts for The Daily Digi, one post at Capturing Magic, 8 posts on our personal family blog, and 20 posts here on this blog.

 

What were my disappointments this month?

Our new house project got slowed down a bit because of a few minor changes that needed to be made. Life was kind of hard for Alex with all the changes that were going on. He had a rough few weeks.

 

Anything else noteworthy to include?

With my brother’s wedding coming up at the first of May, we all helped out a bit with some of the logistic planning. I also have to take a minute and brag about how well my daughter is doing in school. She is really enjoying her teachers, classes, and some fun friends. Hooray!

 

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