End of Weekend Blues

Here it is Monday night - the end to a long weekend. Bummer. But on the upside I did accomplish a good bit the past three days. I did some catching up for my Big Picture class  called Twelve. Mind you, I'm no where near to being up to date, but I did scrap a couple of layouts. This is one of them:

This one fits into the rituals category for which I designated the color purple. If any of you have taken Design Your Life with Cathy Zielske, you may recognize the layout. I think that class is my all time favorite scrapbooking class. I seem to use the layout designs from the class over and over. Saves me lots of time and they all seem to look so different when I'm finished.

Some of my other accomplishments for the weekend include laundry, errands, and finally packing up the Christmas tree. Thank goodness I can finally check that off my list. Also managed to make two different recipes in the slow cooker - that means dinner is ready for the rest of the week. When there are just two people those slow cooker recipes go a long way. This a good thing and a bad thing. Luckily, Bill doesn't mind leftovers. Of course he knows the alternative would be to cook something for himself. Since he doesn't cook that's not really an option. Enough rambling for today. I'm off to do just a bit more scrapbooking before I call it a night.

Week in review...

The weeks seem to just fly by. It's almost the middle of January and I don't have the Christmas tree down yet - yikes!! The decorations were all taken off and dutifully packed up on January 1 as is the custom. BUT, we just didn't make the time to pack up the tree. This weekend the tree gets put to rest until next year.
Back to this week - Tuesday after work I met with a retirement counselor to find out what my options are. And after talking with her, I think the best thing would be to hold out until July 2013. Sounds like forever, but I like said, time does seem to fly by. Thursday I went to my French class. I really enjoy class. Madame Gaston is a great teacher and she conducts our class completely in French; just wish I understood more. My homework assignment for this week is to write (in French, of course) about the cuisine of Provence. I'll follow up about that next week. Today is Friday and it's the beginning of a long weekend. Need I say more?
I think I'll end with this picture taken this morning on my way to work. It reflects a goal I set every January. A goal for which I am slowly making progress, but sometimes it's like shoveling sand.

First Snow...

Today was the first real snow we've seen this winter. And yes, it does look lovely and peaceful as it falls in my neighborhood. But I was at work when it all started, and here in NoVA that means snarly traffic. And I was not let down. That said, I did get home just in time to take a picture. Not quite twilight, just the right light to capture the stillness.

On another note, one of my regular emails from 'Yoga Journal' was about a pose I have been trying to master for a very long time. Maybe this will be the year. This is the pose:  Crane Pose (Bakasana).
I think I'll go try it now, or maybe not! Hopefully sometime this year I will be able to post a picture of me in Bakasana.

Printer Issues

I am the first to admit that my technology skills are limited - very limited. Ever since I started using the Mac I've had issues printing pictures to my satisfaction. I have an Epson Photo printer - R1800 - and it always gave me high quality prints with my old PC. Since I hadn't been doing as much scraping the last few years I kind of overlooked the issue. BUT now that I've signed up for all of these classes I am in need of pictures. I spend most of the day wrestling with this printer and have come to the conclusion that the best solution is to maybe buy a new printer. If anyone has had trouble printing from a Mac I'd really appreciate any help you could offer. Otherwise it's a new printer for me.

Rounding up life...

Well now I've gone an done it - signed up for several classes at Big Picture Classes. One of them is "Roundup Your Memories." I've never been any good at keeping a journal and I'm not sure why I think this year will be any different. But nevertheless I'm going to give it a go. My goal for now is to write something on this blog at least three times a week. YIKES!!!! This is my first go and who knows I may even get brave enough to share this blog, but not today.

So far this month:

• Bill and I hosted the annual neighborhood New Year's Eve party. There were seven of us and everyone stayed until the ball dropped. Surprising for this crowd! 
• At work I'm still frustrated with the new FOCUS system, but at least in the first four workdays of 2012 I feel like I managed to accomplish a few things.
• Yesterday I spent lots of time preparing for one of my other BP classes - Twelve with Stacy Julian. I went through my stash trying to gather up 12 embellishments in each of the 12 colors for the class. I only hit the mark with one color - bright green. No surprise there as it is my current favorite color. I'll keep looking for the other colors. My goal is not to buy anything new. We'll see how that goes.

Here is a look at my day's hard work:

If you're interested in taking any of the classes at Big Picture you can check them all out here:

www.bigpictureclasses.com