Help Wanted!

Can somebody (I totally almost just spelled that "someboday" btw,) make this a seamless image?
And by seamless of course I mean if I were to tile the image side to side, top to bottom, it would turn into one seamless image.
Normally I'd ask Spencer to do it but I'm pretty sure our current computer is sans Photoshop... and my laptop has Photoshop but it also has no working USB drive AND I'm lending it to a friend.

SO, if anyone other than the two people I know read this can work thems shops and make my image seamless, comment and I'll send you the clearest copy of it I have? Yes?

Yes. Ok, thank you.

Ok So There's Actually More To It.

I try to keep certain aspects of my life out of this blog so that they can remain personal to me and that others that I know read this may or may not... well, know those certain things and ridicule me about them. When I want them to know, I'll tell them personally. That being said, there's more to my resolutions than just what I wrote in my last post and I want to list those things here, mainly for my own reference.

Real quickly now:

-grow closer with Spencer and continue to strengthen our marriage.

-return to school and make studies a priority.

-make additional budgets for school and home life, including putting away a percentage of my personal allowance to put back into savings.

-finish ALL crafts projects started in 2008 (including clothing alterations and quilts)

-no more cardboard boxes storing random things, especially if they're not in a closet.

-15 minute clean up everyday.
-----this one I've been trying right after I get home from work, before I sit down or when I wake up on weekends before I shower or eat and it's amazing the difference it makes when I go by time and not task because so much more gets put away and picked up than I thought could happen.

-restrain my diet. this mostly means financially, we eat out SO OFTEN it's almost tragic.

-pick it up on FHE

-volunteer more, and/or donate more often.

-strive to complete my weekly work hours. For a couple months before Christmas I was getting really good at this but I've let myself get lazy around Christmas and New Years and scheduling myself a couple hours less week after week but now is the time to be making habits of saving and budgeting whatever we have and by giving myself those extra 3 or 4 hours a week I'm making a bigger difference financially than I remember sometimes for Spencer and I.

-write Rachel and McKay at least once every two or three weeks. I need to remember that Sunday is the best day to write them because they're p-day is Monday.

-take more pictures. (i.e. find our camera, lol)

-be better at keeping a personal journal.

-visit my brother more often

-help my mother at her home more often

-pray for my dad and aubrey

-visit my kuefner-relatives on holidays. the longer I wait to make a habit of this I realize the more devastating it could be in the future. especially when Spencer and I decide to have kids and I'm still somewhat estranged from most of them. I don't want that.

-grow closer to Spencer more. And then some more.

And that's about as personal as I get so enjoy it!

Happy New Year

I have a New Year's Resolution or two.

One is to just live simpler. Simply-er? What do I imagine this to mean?
Other than physically purging my life and home of clutter, it also means forming good day-today habits that eliminate my life of some stress.
Like saying "yes" more instead of no when asked to help with things. Taking a few minutes day to day to pick up the house, if only for 5 minutes. Toning down my inflammatory tendency to take on multiple projects at once.

Another is to do more. Which, is technically not something I've only just now resolved to do. And by "do more" I mean keep my mind and hands active. Finishing projects when I've started them and trying more new things. I've been pretty good at this for the past month or so. I made some nice curtains to separate the living room and kitchen, and some other drapes for the bathroom. I crocheted a hat last night (just before falling asleep 5 minutes before midnight.) and I also sewed the leggings I'm wearing today. I have 1 quilt top piece waiting to be batted and backed, and 3 other quilts that are coming along nicely, little by little. And I think I'm going to try buying a vintage pattern and giving that a go. I haven't followed a pattern since sophomore year of high school. I also got some cake decorating tools for Christmas to play with which has reminded me that it's been too long since I last made something yummy.

My big resolution this year is to go back to school. Hopefully Spencer and I will get our tax information back pretty soon here and then we can file and apply for some financial aid (what a time to apply though, ugh) and hopefully Spencer and I will haven't run into any big financial trouble and the savings we've been putting aside can allow me to return to college, at least part-time if not full, this fall. Spencer was thinking about taking some additional classes for experience and fun (he graduated from BYU last August if you didn't know already) which I would love because then maybe we could enroll in a class or two together.

So to sum up:
Live simpler.
Keep up my hobbies.
Go back to school.

I think I can manage that, which is why I liked making these resolutions. Normally I'd make resolutions that were extremely defined. Like "lose 25 pounds" and "finish sailboat/tailor's mannequin still life" and things like that were just, meh. As soon as I lost sight of those goals, then I'd feel crappy about it and just put it away in a closet to forget about or eat unhealthily and feel crappy about that too.

All I am worrying about now if whether or not I'm enjoying my life day to day and if I'm not, then I am taking little actions here and there to improve it, and most of all, I'm trying to be patient and focused. I want to allow myself an extra second to react, which allows me to think through my decisions better which causes me to feel a little more confident in myself and my abilities to improve my life and my home life.
And the best part is that I haven't really waited for 2009 for all this to start, but it's nice to put it into words for a reminder when things get hectic or I get impatient. If I have to, I'll write the words "live simpler, be patient and focus" on my arm everyday for a reminder. Maybe I'll just make that the motto/title of my journal for this year. That's probably a better idea.