cpz designs Digital scrapbooking. Life. All mixed together

Enabler Alert and Belated Halloween

Quiet Time

I'm being quiet this week. I think I tried to do too much last weekend so that I could ignore everything happening in my head. I am sad about our missed adoption. I am sad that I am SUCH an oddball in my biological family. That sounds strange to write it like that but seriously, I am DIFFERENT and that is not necessarily rejoiced around here. I got a lot of good emails from my dad about this topic over the past many weeks and HE is also DIFFERENT and that's a very wonderful thing in my book. He calls us anomalies. And its a good thing. He's just surprised I am only now figuring out this fact about myself. I KNEW it, I just didn't have to face it until I lived here, in Houston, working with my mom and brother every day, living down the street from my mom, etc. I am an ANOMALY. And I hope I spelled it right. And I am working every day to be okay with it. Its not easy you know. We tell our kids to be themselves, to be different, to be unique, but do we really mean it? Or do we mean, be unique as long as it is like us? I hope not, but living a life of unique-ness is not always easy, so do we want our children to hurt? To feel odd? To feel different? I think we do, we just have to give them the tools to handle it. Hmm. Okay, enough philosophy for one Friday afternoon, I might explode.

Isabella is leaving for a weekend retreat with the synagogue in one hour. Scott and I have a date night tonight. Tomorrow I have classes at a local scrapbook store all day. Then we have Scott's holiday party (seriously? blghghghhhh) tomorrow evening. Then Sunday morning will be quiet and we pick up Isabella in the afternoon. I'm glad for some time away from work and away from my thoughts, if that is even possible.

Have a lovely weekend all, I'm done for today.

The Unpowerful Lists

Okay, so I was not quite as productive as I wanted to be. Friday night was good. We finished the man room. We did not move the hutch and I did not work on my Inspired goodie bag SWAP project. For those of you keeping count, I'm at 1 outta 3 by bedtime Friday. Saturday items 1 through 3 got done. Items 4 through 7 not so much. A little of #4 and the printer problem is not Scott's fault. He worked on it but none of the print servers we have found on the market support my old Canon printer, which honestly is not that old. I guess 4 years is ancient in IT years, worse than dog years apparently. I am now at only 4 outta 11. On Sunday, items 1 and 3 got done. Items 2 and 4 did not. So... I got 6 out of 13 things done on my list. And about half of those were mandatory. On a brighter note, the reason my craftiness is behind is because I got call caught up reading Kelly Rae's Taking Flight book and got an idea in my head for a Christmas present for my grandparents and spent hours working on that yesterday. So it wasn't all for nothin folks. Maybe lists are not as powerful as I thought, but they do help. And no, I did not paint my craft room. Happy Monday all. I will try to post photos of something, anything, when something, anything, actually gets finished!!

The Power of Lists

I have been cleaning up and straightening out my craft room. No, Helen, it is not yet fully painted. I keep putting it off and now I'm not so sure about this lovely sky blue I chose. Sigh. This is what happens to me when I procrastinate. So those of you who have been keeping up with the blog know that, on occasion, I need lists to keep me in line. We have a fairly quiet weekend on the homefront so I'm hoping to get some things done.

Friday Night

1. Help Scott finish his man room - add the details, move the model plane back in, etc. He needs this space and I need him to have it set up and be happy in it. Keeps him out of mine - ha!
2. Move the hutch from the craft room over to mom's for my desk at the office. Or at least out into the hall so it is out of the craft room. See? I have priorities and they have nothing to do with home decorating. Couldn't care less if it sits in the hall for decades, just NOT IN MY CRAFT ROOM.
3. Work on my Inspired goodie bag SWAP project. Can't wait to make this for my goodie bag partner.

Saturday

1. Go to a Girl Scout leader meeting at 7:30am tomorrow. Yes. Saturday morning. 7:30am.
2. Check in at the office since Mom is out with back surgery for a few days. I'm a good hold-down-the-fort daughter/worker.
3. Scott has to take Isabella to ice skating practice since I will be busy with numbers 1 and 2.
4. Laundry. The true bane of my existence.
5. Scott has to get our printers set up. We moved them into the closet in my craft room on the fabulous shelves he built. He has the cabling and the electrical run but the new print server (whatever that really means other than black shiny box with little holes for cords) is not working yet. I know he can fix it because he is my IT guru.
6. Work on my Inspired Chanukah SWAP.
7. Move the old table from my mom's into my craft room for workspace with friends and Isabella.

Sunday

1. Religious school for Isabella on Sunday morning.
2. Play in the craft room with my friend Kim. We're going to start Jessica Sprague's Stories in Hand class. Yay!
3. Design my grungeboard tags for my All Things Tim SWAP after my friend Kim leaves.
4. Mail out a RAK to a new friend.
   

Not Getting Done This Weekend but still on the list:

1. Finish a painting.
2. Work on my Thanksgiving gratitude project for our family get-together.
3. Finish the grungeboard tags for the All Things Tim SWAP - deadline is Thanksgiving in my head.
4. Paint the craft room.

Seriously? I've got to be kidding. No, I'm not. I'm determined and I CAN DO IT. Well, most of it. Maybe not paint the walls of my craft room. Yuck. That's why its the last thing on the list. I just can't bear to do it.

P.S. I typed this list and then I moved it all around in order of importance and being semi-realistic for time. I LOVE LISTS.

P.P.S. Thank you to all my friends who left comments and emailed me about our adoption situation. We don't know what we're going to do. We DO know that I cannot handle the wondering and waiting, which means foster care is not an option for us. It is not healthy for me emotionally and sadly, I am just not quite as strong in that department as I thought I was. Its good to learn things about yourself, even if you have to learn them the hard way. We still want another child but we're going to have to approach this differently and hope for the best. Again, THANK YOU to all my friends and loved ones. I love you too.

Personally

Despite winning a Round-It-All on Monday, witnessing a new era in our country for which I am grateful on Tuesday, and having a friend RAK me a Tim Holtz mask today, I am sad. We did not get the little boy we have been trying to adopt since February. The courts decided to give him to another family with no children and a stay-at-home mom. Obviously, I have issues with that decision (because quite simply they should have picked us) but I am glad that the little boy will be moving from foster care to a new permanent family soon. I wish it was OUR family... but it isn't. I don't know what we will do next, this has been a very long, frustrating process and I am emotionally beat up at this point.

Dear Jeffrey, know that we would have loved you with all of our hearts and souls, and we hope you have a beautiful, fulfilled, happy life forevermore.

I'm outta here for today.