I have compiled a list for your browsing and clicking pleasure of my favorite posts of 2012. If you're a new reader, you may find some real gems here. Or, not. Either way, I present my best of 2012.
The winner of their choice of spot in one of two online workshops from simplify 101 is:
Laura, email me to claim your prize! Happy organizing in the new year.
Remember, both of these expert-guided online workshops (Create a Life You LoveandQuick + Simple Clutter Control) begin January 3, 2013! My readers can get 15% off enrollment in any of simplify 101’s current online workshops and self-paced workshops. To take advantage of this offer, enter CZDJAN during checkout. This coupon is good through January 3, 2013 and may not be combined with any other offers.
THE GIVEAWAY: One person will win a spot in an upcoming online workshop from
simplify 101. The winner can take their choice of the following two workshops!
If
you’ve been longing for something more or different in your life, but you
aren’t sure how to get from here to there (or you aren’t really even sure where there is), simplify 101 can help. In the Create a Life You Love
online workshop, simplify 101 will give you the FUNdamentals of setting
and achieving your goals.
In this four-lesson, five-week workshop you will discover how to…
dream
and free yourself from anything that’s holding you back from dreaming BIG.
turn
your dreams into goals.
turn
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track
your progress and celebrate your achievements.
Or, maybe your
goal for the New Year is to control the clutter in your home once and for all!
Check out simplify 101's Quick
+ Simple Clutter Control. In this online workshop, professional
organizer Aby Garvey's shares her own clutter control secrets. Using simple,
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workshop, Aby will show you how to take action, clear clutter, and stay motivated.
Both of these expert-guided online workshopsbegin
January 3, 2013! My readers can get 15% off enrollment in any of simplify 101’s current online
workshops and self-paced workshops. To take advantage of this offer, enter CZDJAN during checkout. This coupon is good through January 3, 2013 and may
not be combined with any other offers.
Simplify
101’s mission is to make getting organized fun! Get a taste of simplify 101—and the organized life—with
their FREE, simple-to-follow guide How
to Create a Command Central Binder. You’ll put together a home reference binder that
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TO ENTER: Tell me your number one organizational goal for 2013. I'll choose the winner on Sunday night. Good luck!
Comments are now closed. Check back to see if you're a winner.
It's that time of year again, the time of grand, life-altering pronouncements known collectively as resolutions.
I've known this time well over the years.
Nearly every single year during my 20s and most of my 30s, my resolutions always included the following:
eat better
exercise better
quit smoking
I didn't manage to quitting smoking until I turned 40, and the whole Move More, Eat Well part? It followed in my 43rd year.
But let me tell you something about resolutions: I don't buy 'em.
To me, resolutions are things we set up in our minds that we want to be really firm in our commitment to, but then when we miss the mark, they seem to encourage us to give up somehow. They whisper in our ears, "It's okay… you gave it your best shot… you can't really make this change happen."
There's a crash-and-burn factor that is all to familiar when making resolutions. It's that all or nothing mentality. If you miss the mark, somehow, the journey ends.
I think a much more revolutionary thing to do when you're setting out to make changes is to work more on your attitude, an attitude that says: Guess what? I'm not perfect, but I'm going to keep showing up and trying.
The past 12 months have not been a success for me, if you're only measuring my worth in weight. Yes, I put on 12 pounds since January 1st. But I also kept exercising and I worked really hard in my personal life to make changes that made me a much more loving and loveable person. In short: I put a lot of effort into living the best life possible and to me, that's really what this whole self-care revolution is all about.
How can you connect to your life and give yourself the time and care that is needed?
That, my friends, is really at the core of Move More, Eat Well 2.0. This class isn't a competition to Skinnyville. It's simply a way to document how your care for yourself and to understand your successes and failures along the way.
Failure isn't a term I shy away from anymore because what may initially seem like a negative is really a positive. It all depends on how you look at it. I've learned, and continue to learn, that my perceived failures are really just opportunities for growth and understanding.
And then, I just continue to keep showing up.
I recorded a short video from my basement—a Treadmill Talk, if you will—to invite you to consider joining me for a year of Moving More and Eating Well.
I'm not a personal trainer or a licensed nutritionist. I do not have a secret revelation that will make this process easier. But I'm here, knee deep in the hoopla of showing up and trying to make small changes that add up to better health and overall fitness.
It's almost done. The entire year. Honestly? The fact that I did this album every single week of 2012? Shocking. And awesome.
This week's entry is simple. Not a lot of crazy stuff going on. I think it's that end of the year, eyes on the next album at work thingie. I'm going to start working on my title page for my 2013 album this weekend. I have some ideas and who knows, there may be a free download in there somewhere for you! Check back next week!
Here are my pages for Week Fifty-One.
I think my cookie photography has really improved in 2012, no?
A few of you have asked me to show you how to add a line of text to a photo. Here's a very quick video showing you how to do just that.
To get your free download of the template shown in this video, click here and read the post for more info.
I have loved connecting to the real joy of this month. Being with my family. Being healthy. Creating memories. Living our lives.
Yes, there was sadness this month—profound and deep—and it became a part of all of our lives, really. But it only affirmed the gratitude I have for my life, for my family, for my friends—all of it.
Funny how a little album can add to that, isn't it?
Here are the last pages of the album.
I definitely went more simple for the final pages. I omitted a few because there were too many non-family friends to blur out for Cole's middle school holiday party he hosted on the 22nd.
I really do want to send out some love to my dear friend, Ali. She inspires me—and a whole boatload of others—on a daily basis.
I think I'll be doing this again next year. Thanks for letting me share my album with you.
I had to record a very brief video message a few weeks ago for a very special scrapbooking juggernaut of a gal (Becky Higgins), and I decided to compile a series of outtakes. My contribution to Becky was only 11 seconds long. The outtakes? So much more than that.
OBSERVATIONS: I wanted to keep last week's spread simple. Just photos and captions. Sometimes I think even I can make the Project Life process more complicated than it needs to be. Photos. Words. Life. Love.
Here are the pages from last week:
We spent hours antiquing in Stillwater, MN, last weekend. The reason this is highly amusing to me is that I don't like antiques. Not much at all. I think it was the company I was keeping that made it so sweet.
I'm sure that I will be light and bubbly and funny again real soon on my blog. I'm trying to understand this world that we all live in right now. I know there is so much good here on Earth.
I wanted to post the pages I've yet to share, doing a little catch up for my December Daily.
Here are the days:
This next page is a scan of the top of a box of Shiny Brite vintage ornaments I bought at an antique store in Stillwater, MN, over the weekend. There is something so cool about 1950s graphic design.
Dan and I spent a weekend in Stillwater, MN, a little sleepy town on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, set on the St. Croix river. There was such a whirlwind of emotion for me this past weekend. In fact, when I look back to the December 13 page, my heart aches. How much we need days of normalcy in our lives. You know?
One of the things I decided to do was to get an Elf on the Shelf for our house. I'd asked the kids if they thought it would be fun when we were out last week at Barnes & Noble. They both echoed a resounding, "NO!"
But the next day I hatched a plan to go and get one, and leave them to find him when Dan and I were in Stillwater.
I left Aidan with a standard list of things to do: water the tree, bring in the paper, check the mail, etc. But I left the first note from Malachi (yes, that's his name) in our mailbox, to be found a few hours after we left town. The note was from an extremely bitter elf, who knew he wasn't wanted and just his luck, as he decided to come to our house anyway, found himself in an extremely sticky situation. (He was blindfolded and trapped in the dryer.)
Suffice to say, Malachi was a hit.
The kids were left with a challenge to one up the parents and create their own paper trail of elf-dom so we could come home and search him out as well.
Aidan took it to the next level.
She went online and got ideas for posing him. She created an Instax clue trail, complete with some serious riddles we had to figure out to unearth all of the clues. In short: it was totally awesome and she was giddy with excitement over the whole thing.
I put all of the notes and the photos into a little glassine pocket from Paper Coterie that was part of a Christmas card I received.
Each photo spelled out one letter of the key word that would help us find our poor elf.
We found him laying quietly on our basement wine rack.
My heart was about to burst, just at the fun and the joy created by my teen-aged girl.
So much to be thankful for right now. So very much.
I've thought about a song that I posted once before here on my blog, years ago, a song by Everything But the Girl, and while I know this will pull on your heart strings, I feel like in addition to sending love and hope and prayers to these families, we owe it them to try our best to stay with their pain and their sorrow.
So they can know in some tiny, infinitesimal way, that they are not alone.
I've thought of having children But I've gone and changed my mind It's hard enough to watch the news Let alone explain it to a child To cast your eye 'cross nature Over fields of rape and corn And tell him without flinching Not to fear where he's been born
It's time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loosed, and the world runs wild.
