Project 365 - February!

 

Eh?  You like?  And here is what they will look like side by side in an album... along w/ January's also.  I think it's going to be so cute when it's all finished!!  I just need to keep taking lots of pictures... which I have not been so great about the past month.  Been too busy obsessing over Dexter, our new favorite show.  I never would have thought I'd love it, but it is one of my favorite shows of all time!  Ok, here ya go: 

 

And there you have it!  Not much else going on these days... spent the last weekend with Andrea in Oklahoma City - fun, but WAY too short of a visit.  Currently in the last weekend before we go back from Spring Break.  It has been gloriously lazy, and I have loved every minute of it!  I've watched a ridiculous amount of TV and haven't done much else.  I think next week is going to be a hard week back, haha. 

Hope all my school friends have had a relaxing Spring Break, and for the rest of you... ummmm you should be a teacher.  :) 

We will miss you Father Joe!

Our last Sunday with Father Joe - he will be dearly missed. I'm sensing a little vacation to Washington DC this summer! :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hello, Goodbye

I love my church!!!  I think it's been since high school that I've felt really solid about and connected with a church and the group of people there. 

Last night some of the girls from St. Seraphim went out for a girls night.  We went to P.F. Changs first (where I ate entirely way too much food, but it was sooooo good!).  Then we headed over to the Rodriguez's house for drinks, "Just Dance" on the Wii (I think that's what it's called?), and a little mini-baby-shower for our dear Katie.  It was so much fun!  It was a long week, and an especially long Friday, so a little girl time was much needed.  I was feeling kind of blue all day, so I don't feel like I was my usual happy self... but it was still a great time.  I think we need to do it more than a few times a year, but it's so hard to coordinate that many schedules!

Some highlights...

In other (sad) St. Seraphim news, our beloved Father Joe is moving to Washington D.C. this week.  Tomorrow is his last Sunday with us, and Matushka Kathy (his wife) will be joining him in D.C. at the end of the school year.  I just cannot express how sad Tim and I (and everyone at church) are that he is leaving.  I really think that if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be Orthodox and wouldn't be where I am now.  I feel like Tim invited me on the journey, and then Father Joe walked us through it every step of the way.  He is so wise, so humble, and just real.  I know that he is going where he is needed, and that it's God's will that he go there... but selfishly, I am so sad that he's leaving and wish he could stay here... forever.  :(  His goodbye brunch was last weekend after Liturgy, and while I personally don't have any pictures... you should check Vladimir's out here.

I don't have much else to say... that about sums up where I'm at this evening.  So happy that Tim and I have found a church home with wonderful friends (family) to spend our lives with, yet so sad that we have to say goodbye to one of the most important people in our lives.  Sigh.

Sickly

Well friends, since I have been ordered to stay on the couch all day and rest, I might as well update the ol' blog while I'm here! 

I very suddenly got sick the end of this week - I was at the basketball game Thursday night and started getting a sore throat.  I figured it was just because we did notes that day, and I talked a LOT... but no.  Woke up the next morning and it was a little worse, and now this morning it's moved into my sinuses.  BOO.  At least our school nurse convinced me to go to a walk-in clinic after school yesterday, so I've already got my antibiotic.  I loathe being sick, and would rather do anything to avoid just "letting it run its course."  I know that sometimes that's all you can do, but I'm hoping this antibiotic kicks it pretty quick.  And of course Tim has been very sweet and helpful, and Lucy has been especially cuddly... I love my family.  :)

Tim's "gift" to me so that being sick could be more bearable, is that I get to watch the rest of season 2 of Dexter without him while he works on things today!!  I.  love.  Dexter.  I really didn't think I would get into it... thought it would be too dark (you know, with the whole sociopath serial killer thing he's got going on).  But we LOVE it!  I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I wasn't sure that I'd like Weeds either and we're addicted to that one too.  So that's my plan for today... lay around and veg and watch dear Dexter. 

I guess that's it, since nothing else is really note-worthy.

...not that being sick and watching Dexter are exactly note-worthy... 

 

Project 365... Take Two!

Okay, so that last post where I said I was going to take a long, hot shower and go to bed??  (At this point, if you have not read the previous post, you really should before you continue with this one so it will make sense!)  So anyway, while in the shower (during which I ran us completely out of hot water!), I decided that I couldn't just give up.  I also decided that maybe this was for the best... maybe the other project was going to be a tad too ambitious, and maybe I should scale back a little.  Maybe that's what I'm telling myself to get over the disappointment of having to involuntarily give up on that particular project so early on? 

Either way, I am in a MUCH better mood now than I was a few hours ago.  And I now present to you, the new (and improved?) Project 365.  :)

 

YAY!  I feel like I can go to bed now and forget about the whole mess.  I really like the way these turned out, and I was able to still use quite a few of the pictures I took throughout January.  And really, I think it allowed me to narrow it down to just the main events that I wanted to remember.  

Good grief, and good night!!

:'(

So, this post is really for me more than anything.  I'm not writing it for sympathy, just to make myself feel better.  Nothing tragic happened. 

HOWEVER.  The Project 365 stuff that I've been working on?  All the files are completely gone.  Vanished.  I don't know if it was from the virus, or if somehow I accidentally deleted the folder (looking back I realize that it was probably pretty stupid to plan to work on a project for an entire year without making a back-up of the folder... but being that it's barely February, I guess I just wasn't thinking about it like that yet).  I tried to restore the system back to January 30th, but of course it didn't do any good because it doesn't affect your files... just programs apparently.  I knew this, but I had to try. 

So now I feel like I'm at a crossroads.  I liked the idea of taking a picture every day (mostly), but I liked the idea of scrapping them even more... and having an easy template to work with that still allowed me to be creative. 

Do I start over?  I mean, it's only January.  It could have been much much worse than this (and way more devastating).  But I don't WANT to start over.  I feel like I would be bitter about it the whole time I was re-doing January (all the while getting behind on February).  I do have the pictures... but now I would have to rewrite all of the little journal strips and re-crop all the pictures.  Not to mention re-purchase the kit in the first place.

Do I start over but with a different template set?  Maybe an easier one?  I have one that I downloaded awhile back just to check out.  It only has 7 or 8 photos for the whole month and then a little section to journal.  Seems more just like my usual "year in review" scrapbooks though, and I had liked the idea of something different.

Do I let this stupid, irritating, sob-inducing, frustrating beyond belief incident ruin the idea?  I feel silly (like I'm making WAY too big of a deal out of this), but I am so so so frustrated!!!!!  I feel like I'm having a major internal struggle right now... and that if I completely abandon the project, the "incident" wins.  I want to give it up and not think about this freaking project ever again... and at the same time I almost feel like that's being weak... giving up.  When I could easily re-group and start again. 

Again, really not looking for advice or sympathy, just wanted to vent for myself.

It's 8:30... I'm going to take a very long, hot shower and go to bed.  I think that getting lots of sleep and going to church in the morning is probably the best thing for me right now.  I think that will bring things back into focus, and I will realize that in the grand scheme of things, getting this upset (angry really) about something so trivial is really quite silly.  Really looking forward to church tomorrow even more than I already was... I need some perspective.

Stoopid Computer Virus

So I got a virus on my computer two days ago. I am so mad at myself for "allowing" it to happen - something popped up while I was downloading a bunch of freebie digital scrapbooking files, and it wanted to do something to my computer... so I clicked "no." As soon as I clicked it, I thought, "Why did I do that?? Why didn't I just x it out or close the program?" And sure enough, less than a minute later, Windows had detected a virus on my computer. UGH!!! I'm usually much better about things like that, and I think more than anything I was annoyed at myself.

Needless to say it's taken us until today to get everything straightened out. It was a sneaky little bugger... kept finding it, getting rid of it, and then it would reinstall itself (or whatever the technical lingo is) upon the next start up. We finally just restored from a backup of the computer from three days ago. (I know you are all SO thrilled to know the intricacies how we took care of the virus on my computer!)

Soooooo I was finally able to tweak my first Hawaii scrapbook page (there was just something not quite right about it - thanks to Tim's great design eye, he helped me figure it out).  I now present to you the new and improved version (along with the old for comparison), as well as a new one that I started yesterday and was able to finish today.  I am pretty much in love with them both.  :)

Eh.  This is the old one - something's just not quite right...

Ahhh... much better, we have CONTRAST now!  (thanks babe)

And this one might be my favorite one I've done ever - I LOVE it!!  :)

And there you have it!  I'm really irritated that when I finally got back on a scrapbooking kick, my computer was out of commission for almost TWO whole days!!!  Lame.  I got out my traditional paper scrapbooking stuff, but shockingly, I just wasn't into it.  I got 5 pages done on my bridal shower, but the whole time I kept thinking how much more fun it would be if I were doing it in Photoshop.  I'm kinda sad about the shift... why??  I'm weird.