Cathy Zielske's Blog

Free School's Out Card Download for Project Life

It's official: school is out and summer is at hand.

Granted, we've had freakishly cool, gray, Seattle-like weather here in the Upper Midwest so it doesn't really feel like summer. You will get zero complaints from this Pacific Northwestern bred, perimenopausal girl. I say temps in the sixties are sexy. 

This marks the first summer that Coleman has off in full. Both kids attended year-round school programs from Pre-K to 6th Grade, and this is a summer I've been anticipating for a few years now. 

I don't have to wake anyone up today.

Okay, that's not completely true. Aidan starts her summer nanny job today (her second year with the same family), and she will have to arrive there at 8:30 a.m. sharp. No worries. Her job site? Right next door. How's that for ease of commute?

Cole, on any given day, will likely sleep until Noon, which means my work mornings will not seem all that different from those during the school year. I am worried, however, that the wake up time will creep and that soon enough, my son will be living like a Lost Boy, rising only at dusk. As long as he doesn't start to feast on human blood, I figure it's all part of being a male teen, right? Right.

That said, I designed a simple 3 x 4 card to celebrate the end of school. In the package, you'll find a layered PSD (so you can change out all of the colors), a PNG (to print as is, and these colors match the Seafoam Edition of Project Life), or a printable PDF.

Download CZ_SchoolsOut

Here's to summer! 

Speaking of summer… 

The Phone Photography Project kicks off in about three weeks at Big Picture Classes. Register for the introductory price of $39 until June 12th, when the price goes up to $49. This class offers 32 days of photo challenges, inspiration and app reviews. I contributed a fun digital template designed to take six of your favorite phone photos and feature them in a framed project. Click on the image below for more information and to register.

Lake-agrams

My family spent Memorial Day weekend up in Nisswa at our family cabin. The cabin is a very Instagrammable kind of place.

(That's the Little Cabin, where teens will often hunker down on many a Lake Weekend.)

Sometimes, you'll just see people walking in the lake.

Or drinking in the lake.

Or just plain drinking.

Definitely eating.

Suffice to say, I took more shots with my iPhone than I did with my big old DSLR. 

Phone cameras kind of rock.

Me, on Instagram.

Speaking of phones, in just over a month The Phone Photography Workshop kicks off at Big Picture Classes. This class is 32 days of Android + iPhone ideas, challenges, daily inspiration and app reviews. I contributed a fun little frame project that puts your square format Instagrams to work! To learn more about the class, click here.

 

The change is upon me

Spring arrived last week and things are finally starting to come alive again in St. Paul.

I am not complaining. I am a fan of chilly nights, soul-warming soups and big, puffy slippers.

I actually live in dread of the heat.

Maybe it's not so much of a dread. Weather is part of life. Temperatures rise, temperatures fall. I understand this.

But my own internal thermostat is so wacked out these days that I do not look to the forthcoming hazy days of summer with glee and anticipation.

Instead, I'm desperately trying to figure out how to replace the crank out windows in my sauna office so I can purchase a small window unit this year to provide a bit of respite from the notoriously nasty days of Minnesota summer. 

My office gets hot first. Southern exposed windows. Zero cross breezes. Computer equipment buzzing. Sure, it's great in the winter. It probably even saves on our heating bill overall. But even on a glorious spring day, 75 outside can quickly mean 85 inside. 85 leads to 90 and 90 leads to a fussy, sweaty designer in perimenopause.

True, we have central air, but in a house built in 1918, let's just say the circulation to the upper floor is less than optimal. It doesn't work at all in the office.

But maybe it's not just the change of life that is to blame.

Maybe it's the dyed-in-the-wool Washingtonian in me. I was bred for the damp and the cool. I was designed for that Pacific Northwest climate. I was supposed to love smoked salmon, Starbucks and Nirvana, things that undeniably go better with 55 or fewer degrees.

 

When I started this blog, originally in 2005, I never envisioned that one day I'd be trying to figure out what to write about that didn't involve weather, hot flashes, therapy and weight loss.

I remember just writing about aliens and Johnny Depp or whatever else tickled my fancy.

When no one reads you, there's definitely a sense of freedom.

It's different now. I have readers. I have sponsors. I need to keep the content a comin'.

Maybe it's that change of season, change of life thing at work. When things are physically in flux, adjustments are needed. Figuring out the best response takes thought and energy.

I just wanted to let you know that if I'm not posting a ton right now, save for my Project Life stuff, it's not for lack of trying.

It's for lack of knowing what it is that I really want to say.

Sometimes, working on getting your ducks in a row doesn't always translate to the best blogging.

Or, maybe it translates to the best blogging ever.

I'll keep you posted on what I find out.

 

 

They swear it's coming…Spring!

I didn't grow up in Minnesota and I've always thought that the snow they get around these parts is magical.

Even after 23 years of it, I still kind of feel that way.

A few years back, I would grumble along with the rest of the state. You know—piss and moan about how awful this weather was and when was it ever going to end and I am SO done with winter.

Then I started therapy.

Now I just wake and say, "So... this is what we have today? Okay. Whatever."

I'm not saying the state of Minnesota needs professional help, but this is where we live. I could come up with all sorts of valid reasons to complain if I wanted do.

It doesn't mean I always like it. I don't love shoveling. I have sucky designer wrists that get tweaked all sorts of wrong from shoveling. Driving in it is not very much fun at all. 

But it sure feels fantastic when a hot flash hits to just step outside into the snow.

I rest my case.

 

Mrs. Brightside

I love winter.

Some people don't. Some people curse it, condemn it, pray for its timely demise.

But not me.

I like to be cold much more so than being hot. I'm a hot house flower of sorts. One that does much better not actually being in a hot house.

Maybe an ice fishing house with a small heater is more my style, save for not being real big into ice fishing. 

One of the real bonuses of living in Minnesota during the winter at age 46 is that when your hormones start stoking the internal metabolic flames, you can just step outside and ahhhhhh… instant relief.

Of course, this isn't practical at 2:30 a.m., but I'm fortunate to live with a man who keeps the thermostat dialed way down low between the hours of Midnight and 6 a.m.

It's funny. I used to fight with him over how cold the house was at night. Back in my 30s. Of course, back then I would have picked a fight with him over his shoelace being untied. Still… time has shown me there was a larger plan at work: he was planning for my change of life all along.

I told my therapist about this, the idea of being grateful for winter and how it is a real plus for my perimenopause self to which she reminded me it wasn't too long ago where I complained to her that Minnesota was never a place I would have chosen to live.

Progress.

It's simply a matter of a shifting perspective, and I'm not just talking about some Pollyanna way of looking at the world, but rather, what am I grateful for instead of what I'm lacking for.

Are there things you've found a new perspective on over the years? If so, by all means, share.

 

Heirlooms: a love story?

Dan has been on a cleaning and organizing binge for the past six months. (Side note: is there a sexier way to describe any man? I mean, really? Is there anything hotter than of a bottle of Windex and the phrase, "Do you care if I throw this out?")

One of his targets has been our attic, but he's also focusing on other areas of the house. A few days ago, he was sorting through a drawer and came across a stack of old photos. As he was sharing them with me, I paused on this one:

That's my tiny little hubby in red, sitting on his great grandmother's lap, circa 1967, his older siblings, Debbie and David, nestled in on either side. 

That's also my old couch.

When I moved in with Dan back in 1990, he owned a little duplex in Frogtown, a working class neighborhood just outside of St. Paul's downtown district. As I quickly discovered, he was the sibling who always said 'yes' to the cast offs and family hand-me-downs. 

Want your uncle's trunk of clothes from the 50s? Yes! Want your grandparents' old furniture? Absolutely! How about this collection of antique tincture bottles from the 1930s? I have JUST the place for that!

He has always been a man with a soft spot for the old and gently used. Not only that, he's always been a man with a sincere respect and love for the quality, craftsmanship and style from the days of yore. He's a fan of the vintage.

The couch you see in the photo above was his—and in turn became ours—for the first eight years of our married life. I brought practically nothing of substance to our union, in terms of earthly possessions. I added a bed, and a black futon and a black futon-like coffee table. (And of course, my sparkling personality!) But my cheap, college furniture didn't really stand the test of time like that old, inherited couch did.

The couch was relegated to the porch in the early 2000s, and then with our remodel in 2010, we said goodbye to it for good. It was, afterall, falling into disrepair and though it was hard for Dan to say that last goodbye, we did, in fact, bid it a final adieu.

Seeing this photo, I had a great idea: I'll find some photos that show our more recent past on the couch—us, the kids, friends, family—and I'll combine it with this photo for a layout, or a blog post, or something to show how things weave themselves effortlessly into the backgrounds of our lives.

So I sat down yesterday and pored over my photo albums. The active years this couch had in our family was during the pre-digital camera years, so I knew I would find photos in the pages of my traditional photo albums.

It was so fun to page through the albums, reconnecting with so many photos and so many memories. Page after page of our lives. I couldn't help but feel like in this digital era, where so many of my photos end up as bits and bytes in an iPhoto library, that not having a complete, printed photographic record at my disposal was somehow a loss.

And as I went through every possible album that could hold a photo of this couch's golden years, the only shot I ended up finding was this, from 2001:

Can you see it? In the upper right side of this shot, taken on Coleman's 2nd birthday? The beautiful curve of that inlaid wood? The classic fabric from a time long since passed?

That's the couch. And that is the only photo I could find that even showed a trace of it being in our home.

And that's when it hit me:

I hated that freaking couch.

It was small and scratchy and dark and you sunk into it every time you sat down, on account of the completely wasted and ancient infrastructure. It smelled funny, too.

Okay, maybe hated is too strong a word, but the day it went out to the porch was a happy day for me. And the day it left the premises completely? I think overjoyed comes to mind.

I guess the point to my story is this: not every heirloom is automatically cherished and loved.

I've never really been a vintage kind of girl.

I never loved that piece of furniture.

I loved the man that came with the couch like crazy though. Still do, in fact.

And that, blog readers, is probably the real point to this story.

Maybe that will make a great scrapbook page afterall.

 

I specifically asked for cage-free eggs

I love having a 13-year-old boy in the house. And even more than that, finally getting his 13-year-old sense of humor.

Funny boy, Cole Zielske.

p.s. This message was approved by Cole Zielske.

 

Missing my tree and other New Year's Stories

And so the holiday season is officially wrapped up, boxed up and put away for another year.

I miss it already.

This year, more than any year before, I was filled with true happiness over the holidays. I set my intention to get into the season, and that's exactly what I did. Yes, there was some of the most heartbreaking news I think any of us have heard with what happened in Newton last month, but I emerged from December so thankful for this life of mine.

I know this is a direct result of therapy, this idea that I can really connect to life and be present and well, just simple be.

Yesterday I got back into the work groove. Always lots of deadlines on tap and it was good to be busy. It meant I missed my late sleeping teens a bit less. I love having them home. I love knowing the house is full of bodies, even if those bodies are in fact sleeping for many hours of the day, as teens are wont to do.

We hosted a rockin' New Year's Eve party, a tradition going on about five years now, complete with karaoke and plenty of fine champagne (okay, plenty of cheap champagne.) And when I say rockin', that translates to "I went to bed at 4 a.m." Holy mother of pearl. Good times, indeed.

Alas, the holidays are over. I said to Dan on Sunday: I miss our tree.

He looked at me, shrugged, and said, "You can go visit it in the backyard."

Good point.

Happy new year, indeed!

 

The Best of 2012: a totally biased perspective

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. 

Best Photoshop Job

Favorite Scrapbook Page of 2012

2nd Favorite Scrapbook Page of 2012

Favorite Post About My Fear of Public Nudity

Absolute, Hands-Down Favorite Thing I Saw on the Internet in 2012

Favorite Post on Marriage 

2nd Favorite Post on Marriage

Favorite Recreation of 1950s Basketball Player

Favorite Theme Party of the Year

Favorite Moment of Mistaken Identity and Parental Pride 

Favorite Free Template

Favorite Project Life Spread

2nd Favorite Project Life Spread

Favorite Lament About Parenting

Favorite Recipe of the Year

Favorite Recipe of All Time

Favorite Nods to Favorite Quotes

Favorite Album Project of the Year

Favorite Post About Scrapbooking

Here's to a happy 2013. Thank you for continuing to come around to visit me here in this online home. It means the world to me.

Love,

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21

Twenty-one seems like a lucky number.

Twenty-one years ago today I married Daniel Ezekiel Zielske in a simple ceremony on a very chilly October afternoon.

At just over eighteen years into it, we decided to try and figure out the stuff that wasn't quite working; the stuff that was slowly but surely bogging our union down. The stuff that was surely going to either drive us apart, or drive us to live unhappily forever after.

And learning about that stuff has been nothing short of mind-blowing. Of course, I can only speak to the mind blowing aspect that I personally have experienced. As I've learned, he and I are very different people in this world with completely different issues we've both carried with us all these years.

But I've learned so much about myself—and continue to do so—and as I've mentioned here on the blog during the past few years, there've been some hard pills to swallow along the way.

Pills that had to go down the old gullet, whether I wanted them to or not. And let me tell you, I've put up a good fight on a lot of them.

Here's to swallowing pills and finding connection and redefining a relationship together.

Happy anniversary, Dan Zielske. We've got way too much invested to stop now.