Writing it All Down

I've mentioned in past posts that one of the things I love most is to write. Well, duh! I have a blog, go figure. Seriously, as much as I love all the pretty colors and textures in my scrapbooking, I realized that my favorite scrapbooking class was the writing class I took at Jessica Sprague.com through Jessica & Liv. A few months ago they followed up with a second class (Type & Writer 2) and I was not disappointed. In both cases, neither of these classes really taught me anything new as far as my journaling was concerned. I have a degree in Communications, I took a lot of different types of writing classes in college. I may not have always been good at it, but I've probably dabbled in most types of writing. What I enjoyed most about these writing classes were the prompts and the journey of the writing that was involved. Every night we'd have a 15 minute free write assignment. While we were encouraged to write on whatever topic we wished, we were given a topic to reflect upon which would be utilized in the next night's scrapbook page. For instance, we were asked to write about an "adventure" we'd been on. The adventure didn't have to be an African Safari, though that would be an obviously easy choice. It could be a walk in the park after it rained or Sunday dinner at Grandma's house, what was important was to convey why it was an adventure to you and to use all of your senses in describing this adventure. I wrote about our forays to the beach house. How the sunlight shines through the palm trees on the main drive and how you can taste the salt in the air when you get close. It is by far, one of my favorite pages. I love how the photos support what I wrote, instead of the other way around.

Realizing how much I miss writing like that I've been paroozing around for a similar outlet and sumbled upon a website called {W}rite of Passage. It is:

"A group of writers seeking a challenge, getting critique, and finding community."

Every week a a new "challange" is given. We sign up to write about it, and then provide each other creative criticism on our writing. The feedback is done "behind the scenes" on the {W}rite of Passage website, so as to keep it safe and friendly. Jumping in with both feet, I signed up for the next topic, January 4th. I'm excited to have found this outlet and hopeful that I won't be too embarrassed in the presence of some writers who I think very highly of. (Yeah, I know I wasn't supposed to end the sentence with an "of", but it's my blog, so I'm taking creative license. ;-) I'll be posting my first essay on Monday, so we'll see how it goes. But if you're interested in stepping up your writing I highly recommend checking out the website.
And for a little eye candy, here's the scrapbook page I mentioned:

Big Girl Bed

There are no more babies in my house.
Only children who sleep in regular beds.

Sigh.

I'm going to go smell our neighbor's newborn now; so my ovaries can ache along with my heart.

Creative Me

This has been a hard week. My back is only getting worse; I had a dr. appt today & an MRI now on Monday. BigSpeak got sick yesterday afternoon (fever and throwing up, just fever now) and still is, and LittleSpeak is busy being LittleSpeak in the middle of it all. I haven't written about my back this week because it's rehashing the same old thing, but today I hit a new low. I called DaddySpeak at work & asked him to please come home. With one child I can more or less pull it off, but with two; one sick and the other wanting lots of attention, I just couldn't pull it off. I needed to lie down for at least 10 mins ever half hour (that's how I've made it through the week so far) & it just wasn't happening. DS was a trooper and took a taxi from South City to his car in the South Bay (he takes a van pool). Luckily his company allows for this type of thing once a quarter and will cover what I'm sure was a very expensive ride. I popped a couple pain pills and parked myself on the couch w/lots of support pillows, and promptly passed out. I'm just so exhausted from the pain. I'll let you know more on this when I do, my current dr believes that they will be recommending surgery, but I'm holding out hope. I just don't feel like I'm at that point yet. I'm not sure what that point will be, but it will be before I permanently have a dropped foot. And the point I'm at now is unacceptable. I can't care for my kids!

In spite of the above, I am doing something "just for me" this week, and loving it. I haven't really been cropping the last several months. I guess it was just feeling a little stale, so I signed up for a class at Jessica Sprague.com . I'm loving it. The class I signed up for is a writing class, it was the next one offered and I was feeling desperate. My degree is in communications, which is more than half writing, although you probably can't tell from the way I usually write here. I didn't realize how much I missed writing. I wouldn't say anything in the class has been "new" for me. Most of the techniques were ones I've done in school or at work at some point. But having someone assign me a topic and homework is really helping to get me inspired. We are given a new writing "technique" one day and the next we use our journal entries to help create a new page. In addition, we're getting new templates, papers, etc...to help in designing our pages which is always fun. I can't believe how much inspiration I'm getting from doing this. I'm so excited I'm signing up for the next class (an intermediate photoshop class) next month. I'm excited to be excited about something for me for a change.

The page we did yesterday was about ourselves, something most scrapbookers are notoriously poor about doing. The shoemakers kids have no shoes kind of thing.... It's the first page I've ever done about myself & I really enjoyed doing it. I'm really happy with the result, so I decided to share it here. (Pix is from BigSpeak's first day of school & the photo is offset because she's right next to me, but I also think it brought in a cool artistic effect...at least I'm going to keep telling myself that.)
Tell me you love it, even if you think it's lame. I'm really proud of it.

Head East Young Man...errr South East, errr Middle aged couple....Whatever, Get Going Before You Change Your Mind!

I just finished putting together a power of attorney document for my kids while we’re gone. We’re headed to Miami for a week on Saturday.

No kids.

I’m not sure how I feel about it now that it’s so close to happening.

When I was making reservations I was still breastfeeding, so the thought of being able to be away from the kids for that length of time was beyond exciting. Originally, I was planning on flying out on Wednesday, DS is going for a conference and will be attending functions Monday – Wednesday. Once I started researching flights I realized it was actually cheaper for me if I fly on the weekends, even though I’m staying longer. Go Figure. Since the hotel room is the same either way we decided to go for it. We haven’t had more then an overnight alone in 5 years! Since before DD1 was born. The thought of having that much free time was intoxicating.

OMG, I can lay by the pool and read a book! Not a short article in a
magazine, but an honest-to-goodness book. I can get a pedicure and not
have to schedule around naps and babysitting availability. We can go out
to dinner at EIGHT PM and no one will freak out.

Ok, DS might freak out, but if I get him a beer and some chips he’ll be fine.

The idea of that much freedom seemed like such a pipedream!

The plan is to hang in Miami until Thursday and then we’re going to drive down to Key West for a couple days. I’m sure we’ll take our time getting there. I’m excited because I’ve never even been to Florida before and I’ve always wanted to visit The Keys. I’m excited to get to spend some alone time with my husband, to be a couple for a little while again, instead of a “family” all the time, to travel without a hard plan, to relax without an end time to it, to be able to decide I want to go do something and just be able to get up and go do it. Oh, and to drive in the car without anyone saying anything, just enjoying the sound of each other's silence.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still nervous about this trip. For some reason, I tend to get very fatalistic about flying. I’m not really scared to fly and dude, I used to be a premier member for years on United so it’s not like I haven’t done more then my fair share of travel. But I do get nervous about the flying thing. I guess it would be more accurate to say I’m nervous about the not-flying thing. You know, crashing or something equally awful. Ok, I said it, so now it won’t happen right?

I’m also nervous about leaving the girls. I know I’m going to miss them like heck. As lovely as a pedicure on my own time and lounging by the pool with a book sounds, it ultimately pales in comparison to the giggles and hugs of my kids. I know they’ll be fine and the G’parents have some big plans for them, so they’re going to have lots of fun. But it still doesn’t make this easier. I am going to miss them soooo much. There’s a reason we haven’t had more then an overnight alone in 5 years and it’s not the babysitting issue. It’s that we really love being with our girls. In most situations, we’d rather have them with us than not. There have been opportunities to do things for a weekend here and there without them, and we’ve opted not do that. If possible, we take them with us. We don’t just love them, we like them too. Most of all we love being around them and I’m so very glad for that.

My mom acts put out that I’m going to leave them for 7 days instead of 4. Apparently 4 is ok in her book, but 7 is ridiculous. Personally, I think I’ll miss them equally 2 days or 2 weeks, that’s part of why I decided it was ok to go earlier. I know I can use a recharge, so ultimately it’ll be good for all of us. Doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, but it will be good.

In case things get so busy I can’t get back on here in the next couple days, pray for really good weather in So FL for me. I totally want to lie by the pool/on the beach and get a tan. When it rains I plan on shopping, spa treatments and sitting in coffee shops while reading. All those things I never get to do anymore because I have kids. I’m bringing my laptop, so assuming I can pick up some WiFi I’ll post when I can, which with no kids around may be more then I have things to write about. Of, course I can always bore you with the details of how much I miss them. And if you have any suggestions for things we need to do/see in the Miami/Keys area by all means please post it, I would love to hear your suggestions.

So here's my Sept. scrap book pages to hold you over in the meantime (names have been changed to protect the cute) :

Happy October!

Actually has been pretty happy. I had a rough weekend with my back; actually broke down & took a vicodin yesterday. That was after I was completely useless for most of the day. I think I’m feeling the after affects of it today as my blood pressure (I think) is low. I started randomly having a dizzy spell, and I got hot and then I got a headache. Bah! Very reminiscent of my pregnancy. No I’m not pregnant, don’t go there. I wouldn’t exactly be sad if I were to get pregnant, but this isn’t how I’d tell you either. DS says we’re done, so unless he changes his mind I guess we’re done. Kinda a two person thing you know.

On the other hand, Auntie H & Uncle A are now Mommy H & Daddy A! Yeah!!!! The twins were born on Saturday and are doing very well. Baby Boy was 6 lbs. 3 oz. (bigger then DD2, who was a full term single birth) and Baby Girl was 5 lbs 8 oz. Baby Boy has had a few issues that are somewhat typical (I think) of multiple births, but some have already ironed themselves out, so I’m sure it will all be happy chaos by the end of the week.

The only real new news is that I have been cropping like crazy these days and actually been approached to do someone’s baby book for them. I know! At first I was like, I don’t know, cause that feels like such a responsibility, but then I looked into what a commercial license entails, etc… and I feel more comfortable about it now. So I emailed her today to see if she’s still interested. We’ll see. I think I’m going to leave it at that so I can go crop some more AND because I still have this raging headache. I’ll leave you with one of my recent layouts to fill the usually lengthy (wordy) void.

Layout credits: All layout paper and elements are from the express yourself kit by Ronna Penner of Scrapadelic.com. Grunge mask from J. Sprague.