Week 23 and a half

This blog post is about nothing and everything, so I couldn't think of a title for it, lol. So here's what happened in my photo/scrappy life at the end of week 23 and the beginning of week 24 of this week.

I'm really just here to show you my P52 photo and some recent layouts for my CTs.

I'll start with P52:

The prompt was "in your closet". There are a good amount of closets in our house, and they are all in varying states of mess. The thought of showing my mess here was not appealing, a mixture of shame and despair, lol.

But last week was a very important week for us as it saw the arrival of our new dog. He is an autisme service dog for our son and I spent most of the week training of handling him. As a result, I did take a moment last week to reorganize one of the big messy drawers in my kitchen to store all his things. So instead of all the messy closets, I will show the newly organized drawer :D

It looks pretty good and organized, right?

It used to have a huge mess of random bags of various sizes, shapes and colours that I was keeping "just in case", added to grocery bags, random camping stuff and the old dog things we had from our previous puppies.

I purged the bags and put them all in the biggest one and I put all the grocery bags in the pouch for Provence made for that! Then I stored all the food items for the pooch in the little plastic bin, because he's a lab therefore always hungry and knows how to open drawers, and I put all the grooming tools and products, toys and various travel items on the other side of the bin.

I love a well organized drawer!

(now let's see how long it stays that way...)

On to scrapping :D

Lately, I feel like I have no time to scrap and my schedule is crazy; I feel like each layout takes days (seeing the kit and planning on scrapping, choosing a photo, downloading and unzipping, then actually opening the software and doing it really does seem to happen over at least a few days). But when it comes down to it, I am scrapping my memories and I have a nice spread for you today :D

First, my desktop for the month:

 Credits: Monster Party kit and the Bits of Yesterday templates by Jen Yurko

Then more of our xmas vacation.

A day at Blizzard Beach for a template challenge at Mousescrappers:

 Credits: Summer at the Lake by Jen Yurko and Valarie Ostrom Designs and a template by Keystone Scraps

And the Canada Pavilion at Epcot:

Credits: Everyday June Bundle by Designs by Jen Yurko (lift of a page by nenner1)

And a quick simple page of the first cuddle with our new dog:

Credit: An Adoption Story by Artgal Style and the Super Chunk font by Jen Yurko

You are my sunshine!

Last week was crazy...

I had to get a bunch of things ready, I worked Thursday, I had a BBQ for the opening of the playground at my son's "school" Friday, then we had a surprise 60th birthday party Saturday for my sweet mother-in-law and that same evening, we were getting our new dog!

It all went well and fairly smoothly, though.

My MIL was really surprised and happy, which is always great, and despite being delayed by an accident on the highway, our doggie got to us in the evening (he was driven here from 900km away!).

Sunday was spent getting to know each other and bonding. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful so we took a walk, and hubby took Cédric for a ride and to visit his grand-parents so the puppy could get used to the house without the constant movement and noise our little dude creates!

No scrapping was done last week whatsoever as a result of all this, but I did take my P52 photo :D

The prompt was "sunshine", so of course, the sun went away for the first 3 days and the sky stayed cloudy.

First chance I got, I took a quick photo of the sky. It was a very bright sun, so I lifted the camera, closed my eyes and snapped it. It's not an ugly picture, it has the sun and clouds and it looks fine:

But then I had a brain wave. It happens, it's rare, but it happens :D

As I've said before, I like the photo to really represent our week. And last week had some sunshine, but not as much as the week before. The BBQ was actually really sunny and beautiful, so that would have worked too. But most important last week, we were getting a doggie. And my brain wave was that our doggie is a yellow lab (a fox red lab, to be precise), so he's sun coloured. And because of that, I agreed to the name Hubby wanted for him which is Helio, and Helio comes from the greek "helios" which means "sun". So on a sunny Sunday walk, here  laid our new "sunshine":

Isn't he the most gorgeous, happy looking dog?

Camera phone

We had a beautiful week-end. We pretty much skipped spring and went straight to summer, with temperatures in the mid 20s celsius and a beautiful sun!

So we've been taking rides and walks and spending a little time on the deck.

Went we built our house, I made sure there would be lots of windows in the open-concept main floor, adding a high window in the south wall and choosing a windowed front door. All that to say that the lighting was great for my photo of last week's P52!

The prompt for last week was "camera". I used to have a cute point and shoot that was small enough to carry around easily and did everything I wanted. Then I lost it... and my awesome hubby got me a new one (summer 2012) which did the same things and more.

Then, still awesome hubby got me a iPhone. I had been using a cheap flip phone, and as I didn't work, there had been no strong reason for me to have a smart phone. But everyone else had one and I guess he could tell I's like one too. It has been amazing for me.

Of course, I waste a lot of time playing silly games. But the Calendar app has changed  my life, I use the Notes app everyday for my lists of things to do, hubby and I text instead of calling (which is easier and more efficient for him), I use the Clock app for potty training our son, I use the Music app and the Podcasts app to listen to audio books and podcasts while I clean and cook, and the reason that led me to tell you all this, I use the Camera app to take photos of our everyday!

And that camera is so good, it takes better photos than my point and shoot did. For someone like me who knows nothing of photography, it is absolutely perfect:

- I always have it with me,

- I can transfer, email, facebook, ... my photos,

- it is very fast and therefore I can take many shots of the same thing hoping one will be good (with an autistic hyperactive son, you don't know how precious that is!!),

- the photos are truly good quality and I end having to retouch them less for scrapping,

- I was able to personalize it with a Gelaskins hard case (HP inspired scrap... I'm a nerd).

For all these reasons, since I got it in March 2013, I haven't used anything else and it's funny that was last week's prompt because I just gave my old camera to my mother-in-law!

So here's me with my "camera", probably the way I look to my son when I take photos of him:

Hope you like it!

This week's prompt is sunshine, so let's hope the clouds go away...

Deux

This week started with a holiday. Monday was Victoria Day, which we call May Run, in Northern Ontario. Both Dave and Cedric were off. We took our time, relaxed, took a ride. It was a good way to start the week.

I then worked two days in a row. Tuesday, I spent the day with two grade 8 classes, which went pretty well. Wednesday, I was at the high school and my last class was depressing. The lack of motivation and work done was just sad and they really pushed their limits. It's the curse of the supply teacher! I was grateful for a supper with my girl friends for which I dressed up (we went to a pretty classy restaurant) and which allowed for relaxing and venting (and some caramel cheesecake). The rest of the week has been uneventful :D

Now, from one fancy supper to another, last week was our anniversary! Ten years!!

My in-laws watched our little man and we went out to another nice restaurant where we had venison, and yummy desserts. And the prompt for P52 last week was "two", so I figured a little photo of the two of us on our anniversary was perfect.

The lighting was bad, though, so the photo that the waitress took makes us look very dark. So once again, the best shot is an end-of-arm couple's selfie. And thank goodness for hubby's long arms :D

But then, I saw these "two"...

... and that's an even better "two". My two guys sharing a moment of love :D Cedric is in a very strong Dad loving phase and I don't mind one bit. I still get lots of love and I really enjoyed seeing my little one so happy to see is Daddy get home and giving him hugs and kisses.

Now, while I have your attention, let me show you a couple of digiscrap layouts I made this week!

My new desktop, with Everyday May by Jen Yurko:

This one is a very cute collaboration between Jen Yurko and Triple J Designs, called Bad Hair Dayz, which allowed me to journal the nightmare that is haircuts... Cedric hates them!

The experience is horrible, but the layout turned out pretty cute :D

Finally, I scrapped another photo from our xmas Florida vacation. Cedric and I in front of the iconic Hollywood Studios. I used a template by Jen Yurko and A Little Baby Boy by Mel Hains Designs, a gorgeous baby kit that can be used for much more ;)

Thanks for looking and have a great week-end, everyone. The sun and warmer weather are finally here, so hopefully, we'll enjoy ours too!

Two weeks of photos and scraps

*Something strange happened with this post... I thought it was posted, but it seems it remained a draft... so it was written last week, but posted today*

I was going to post last week's photo on Sunday, but I had the pleasure of going to a baby shower in the afernoon, and as it was Mother's Day, I spent the rest of the day enjoying my little man's presence.

Therefore I once again have two weeks of P52 to show!

The first one was "messy". I have a lot of messy places in my house. Every closet is messy, both spare bedrooms are messy, the garage is messy, ... But it was super depressing to imagine taking a photo of those messes and showing them to the world. So I opted for a totally different photo.

On Thursday morning of that week, we had a meeting with the therapists in charge of our son's specialized program and what she said made us rethink some things (I won't go into detail). I came out of there questioning things, feeling emotional, constantly thinking and rethinking our next step.

So I decided that what was "messy" was my brain, overwhelmed and too full, and I capture it like so:

Hope you like it :D

The following week's prompt was "sign". On Saturday, Cédric went for the first time to a 5 hour respite program out of the home, called Extend-A-Family. I was nervous but excited and I thought I would take a photo of the program's logo as our sign:

We were in a hurry, so it's a horrible looking picture, taken through the car window, badly centered, ... but I will fix it in The Gimp :D

And while you're here, why don't I show you some of my latest scraps!

I'm still working on my photos from our xmas Florida vacation. The first two are in Downtown Disney, having supper on two different nights at the Rainforest Cafe and the T-Rex.

(Both made with the kit Boys Will Be Boys by Jen Yurko)

The next one is at a Brazilian restaurant in Orlando, celebrating my birthday.

(Made with Bloom Where You're Planted by Jen Yurko and Tamy Miller Designs)

This next one is just a random photo of my little dude sleeping. He's sooooo adorable:

(Made with Good Morning 2 U by Artgal Style)

Thanks for looking :D

Whirlwind of a week

Wow, last week went fast! It was super busy and it felt like I had no computer time.

Hubby was out of town all of Monday and Tuesday, so I had to plan everything well and conserve 

energy for when my little dude is home.

Wednesday morning I worked, until noon, then cleaned a little because someone was coming over, and in the evening we went to the library to read to the therapy dogs and then to the grocery store for a few things.

Thursday started with a one hour and a half long meeting about Cédric's program, how things are going and where we need and want to go with it. These are time consuming, but also overwhelming as they trigger all sorts of thoughts and feelings, and then I had to go clean the house quickly before teaching 7th grade French immersion all afternoon. And when I got home, it seems like I didn't stop until midnight, cleaning, packing, preparing, and doing some scrapping that had to be done before our week-end escapade.

On Frriday, we flew to Toronto. The plane left late, so I had to go to the embassy to renew my passport without eating lunch, then we met up with friends until supper, which was with a business partner of hubby's followed by the highlight of the day: the Lion King musical. I absolutely loved it! The voices were amazing and the songs were great (most from the movie and some added). But the greatest part was definitely the costumes and decor. It was just beautiful. I did really well and respected the no-photo rule. Plus I had promised myself I would enjoy it in real-time rather than try to take a million photos to remember it and therefore not be really present. It would have been impossible anyways as nearly each second is a piece of art!

And on Saturday, we had a brain and body explosion with about 10 hours of Gracie Jiu Jitsu within a 12 hour period. It was great to meet Rener Gracie and his protégé Brian Ortega and to learn from them.

Our flight was leaving at 8am on Sunday so after a short night, we got back home and tried to enjoy the nice-ish weather and stay awake.

With all that, I didn't post my P52 photo for last week... So here it is now:

The prompt was "a favourite place".

It's actually two photos. Timmins is not really pretty, and most of the year, being outdoors is not an option for us as we don't like the cold. So one of my favourite place is not due to its beauty, at all, but to what it represents: date-night with hubby! We try to go at least every other week, and most of the time we end up at out local Montana's steakhouse, which is fast and always really good, followed by a movie. We both love watching movies and it's a great way to relax and not think og anything else.

Our movie theatre really does not look good, so I chose a photo of us in front of the screen: more representative of what I like about it:

So there you have it! Last week's prompt was "messy" which was sadly way too easy with way too many options... I'll be back with it later!

14, 15 and 16!

Three weeks since my last post, means three weeks of photos to show if I'm going to complete my Project 52!!

The first week I missed was week 14 and the prompt was "growth". I hadn't really thought about it and it just hit me as I was taking a photo of my son: hair!!

He himself is growing like a weed, and the photo does show that he looks more and more like a big boy. But I focused on the hair. His hair grows pretty fast but he HATES having it cut. No hairdresser will do it, because he moves too much, and we end up having to do it ourselves. We use clippers, because it's faster, easier and less dangerous than scissors. We usually clip it really, really short, to have to do it only 3 times a year. This photo, taken the first week of April shows that it was getting thick on the sides, and too long around the ears. As we left for a vacation, it actually grew two more weeks and was getting in his eyes too before we clipped it last week-end (something to do on Easter Monday, lol).

The following week was week 15 and the prompt was supposed to be "childhood". But we were on our vacation, just hubby and I, visiting Lisbon at a work conference. That didn't invite many childish topics. And more importantly, week 16 was "skyline" and I thought it would be way more fun to show the skyline of Lisbon than the one of Timmins (which is a small and not very pretty town...).

So I decided to cheat and swap them.

So here's the first photo I took from the balcony of our hotel room in Lisbon.

And because why not, here's the Lisbon skyline at night with the castle on the top left, the cathedral in between our heads and the river on the right. This was the view from the restaurant we ate at on the second night :D

So week 16, which was supposed to be "skyline", became "childhood". And if I'm honest, I forgot to read the prompt and take a photo. But when I realized and looked back, I could have used 4 different photos of my little man. One was him making faces, one was him eating Easter pancakes with his fingers, one was him eating chocolate cake with no shirt on. All were pretty representative of something a child does and enjoys that adult might not (although I know a few adults who will eat with their fingers, and a good bunch that make faces!).

But here's the one I chose:

Nothing says childhood like curling up on your Dad to get hugs and kisses :D

It is also very typical of our little dude, who just loves physical contact and is very affectionate.

So there you have it, three photos which are pretty representative of the last three weeks!

Next week will be "a favourite place" (but it's Friday night and I got nothing yet...oooh, just thought of something as I typed, yay).