Day #11

What a day. Again... I have little time to be posting on here, so this'll be brief. I did get up on time, and I did get lots done. :) So that's the good news. I'm also just grateful-- today was a good day. A joyful day. A grateful day. :) But... now the day is pretty much over, and I am tired. So... again, I won't be elaborating much.




"What's with the pictures of the turnips?" you ask? "What's with the poor quality clearly not very photography focused photographs?" you ask? "What on earth were you doing with chocolate bars and pastry and butter?" you ask? "What IS THIS??" you ask?

Well, I have one name and one day to blame: Robbie Burns and his birthday. And I'll go into that more another day, perhaps. :) Or you can just ask me sometime, and I'll tell you.





Ooh, this is one thing I will go into-- Look! It's Carolyn! And baby Stevie! It's Carolyn holding baby Stevie! WHAT ARE THE ODDS??? :D Well whatever they are, it was cute. And I took a picture.



Oh, and random thing: Guess what I learned today? There is a reason that you don't see many pictures of haggis in the world: It's not very attractive. The end.

P.S. There will be no post tomorrow-- tomorrow is Sunday. Be back on Monday!

Day #10

Success, yet again. :) Yay! And I'm almost 1/2 way through this challenge. This is very encouraging.




Today... eh he, well, again, I'm busy and don't have time to be writing this blog post. We have company, and I have cookies to make. So I have to go.

BUT... I will say a little bit before I leave. :) Here we go!

Since this was a particularly busy day, I didn't get a chance to think about photos till I sat down this evening with my pencil... so, here we are again with white pieces of paper and sketches for you to look at.

The girl I drew is not anyone I know-- she's fictional. ;) And the other drawing is just practice for cakes; I think it helps me keep a steady hand to practice drawing swirls and flowers and patterns and such. So perhaps these are boring... but I thought they might be better than no pictures at all. I tend to find most things a percentage better to read when they involve pictures, so... this is my attempt at making this blog more interesting.

I'll be online tomorrow to reply to my personal emails, etc.





Ciao for now!

Day #9

Day 9-- Ye-hehehehehe-hes!

I had intended to get up this morning and get right to the baking of the day, but Mom asked me to go with her to get some work done on the van-- so instead, I spent the morning sitting on a leather couch in the waiting room drinking tea with Mom and reading my Bible and the devotional book Abby gave me, "My Utmost for His Highest." It was a good way to start the day, even if it did involve some excessive amounts of coldness. :)



I have a few more photos to post today, but that's mostly due to the fact that I worked on a larger variety of projects today. One of my new year's resolutions was to develop my artistic skills a little-- so I am trying to draw something (or someone) every day for practice. Eventually, I want to buy some paints and canvases and see what I can do with that-- but for now, I want to work with what I have.

I have siblings, so I sketched one. If you can tell who it is, yay! If not, (which is entirely possible, by the way), I... will have to work on that. :-/





Having siblings also comes in handy for random photo shoots. :) I say.




Also, having cute cousins for whom to make cute cakes is a definite bonus in... life. :-D I enjoy it, surely.




Now for some tea and Pride and Prejudice with Mom and Caiah. :)

And to finish this off, I'll say -

"That's all for today, folks! Remember, God made you special and He loves you very much! Bye!" --Veggietales

Day #8

Alrighty! Day 8! I can't believe I'm already over a third of the way through this thing... I keep thinking that it's going to be forever before it's over, but I guess not. Wowie.

As you can see, today's photos are, again, somewhat random. :-D One of these days I'll have to make a point of doing something a little more interesting. I realized a few minutes ago that I still hadn't taken any photos today, so I grabbed my new necklace, stuck it in a vase full of beads, and *click click* DONE.

I also took one of me wearing it in VERY poor light and in a mirror that is very much in need of cleaning. :) Eh-he. I have got to muster up some creativity. Yeesh.

Anyway... Gotta love that alarm clock photo, eh? I bet you just look forward to seeing that every day, don'cha? I knew it. Well, here you go. :D




OH! Before I sign off, I wanted to leave you guys with a note about my goal to mostly stay offline this year.

Hopefully most of you know that I've decided to take a few steps back from the internet for 2011. I've realized that my time online very much affects the way I organize my time, the way that I think, and the way that I set an example for my younger siblings. So, I've wanted to decrease it in the hope that putting the majority of my time into my family and my business will affect those areas of my life in a more positive way.

The tricky thing was deciding on a plan for this. I love Facebook because I love to keep in touch with people, and that's a great way to do it-- and that (my relationships) is also something I value. I also need to stay online because a large chunk of my business flows from online communication, so I couldn't very well cut that out.

So, my decision was to cut out personal email and Facebook completely except for Saturdays and to get online every day otherwise for business purposes. That was my plan for 2011.

BUT.

I do not want to shoot any friendships in the foot by being impossible to reach... so... I want you all to know that I can and will be in contact with you if you're trying to get a hold of me for something that requires immediate attention. It's just instant messaging and emails that don't need immediate response that are getting pushed off till Saturdays. I get notifications from Facebook every day, and I do make a point of reading things to make sure they are or aren't necessary to reply to right away. If you need to reach me, YOU CAN. Facebook me, email me, whatever. I do read everything right away and WILL get back to you if it's something important. :) Okay? (Some of you already know this because I've been on Facebook to reply to your messages during the week. :-P)

I'm not trying to cut back on friendships or communication, I'm trying to keep myself from spending hours looking at pictures, reading status updates, chatting with people and enjoying silly banter. Obviously, these are all things I greatly enjoy; but I know that I can be excessive at times, and I have to limit myself.

It's kinda like chocolate: Eat it. Love it. Just don't have it all the time. ;)

Anyway, that's all for today! Be back tomorrow, hopefully with something more interesting for y'all to read and look at.

Day #7

Guess what time I got up? At the dark early hour of 7 a.m.! Again! Score!


I began the day in a lovely way, going out for tea/coffee with a good friend and talking and praying with her. :) I love that.

The rest of the day was spent... doing somewhat random things, and unfortunately, not accomplishing as much as I would like to have. But it's amazing how much you can accomplish when you get up earlier compared to otherwise. I feel like I haven't done ANYTHING today, but when I think about it, I really have. Quite a bit, actually. Just not as much as I could have, which is where I find myself a little frustrated with... well, myself. Ah, well. Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it. :)

One thing that I did today (which may or may not have taken up a lot of time which should have been spent doing other things :-D) was listen to a bunch of Chris August's music. I'd only ever heard his song "Starry Night" which is popular on the radio right now (and you would have heard it if you clicked on the link I posted yesterday), but now I've heard a lot more, and... !! I love! If you'd care to hear some great music, feel free to click on the links below-- these are some of my favorites.

Canyons

I'm Gonna Sing

Battle

You and I

And then, in case you feel like chuckling: I Love Candy

Today's photos are of random objects around our house. And yes, it is still decorated for Christmas. ;) I'm learning to take photos in bad light and also to edit poorly lit photos to look a little better... so I hope you enjoy these, random though they may be.

Eventually, I plan to borrow some people for my photos. That should be some good times. :)







Back tomorrow!

Days #5 and #6

Alrighty! Here I am on day #6, and so far so good! Yesterday was good too, as you can see by the two photos below. The only thing was, on top of being tired, I was SOOO freezing both mornings, so... I was standing there with my camera and closed my eyes both times before I took the pictures. Hence, the amazingly abstract feel of the photos. :-P




Today is one of those days that you walk around with multiple layers of clothing, a scarf around your neck, and a hot beverage in your hands. A hot beverage that has to be re-heated multiple times because of the freezer-like qualities of the air around you. It is also one of those days where your cheeks get rosy INSIDE of the house because of the cold. Which, as some of you know... is a very hard thing for me to achieve even when I'm OUTSIDE, so when my cheeks are pink in the house... I'm happy with the look of it, and otherwise just... somewhat popsicle -esq and miserable.

In other news... well. There is lots of news, actually. But my fingers are frozen, so I think I won't go into all that. The main thing is that I posted on here at all. And unfortunately, I don't have any photos more than what you see here already, 'cause I'm just... cold and I haven't taken any yet. :-D Maybe I'll take some later and post them tomorrow.

I finally have pictures up of the cake that I worked on last week though, so you can click on the picture below to the see the blog post for that.





Be back tomorrow! Hopefully with more wit and less freeziness to post. ;) Thanks, again, for reading and keeping me on my toes!

And P.S. I really love this song. Tip, though: If you're wearing headphones, don't crank the volume and click on that link. I even know what to expect when I do that, and it still makes me jump out of my skin every time. Turn the volume DOWN... and then adjust as necessary. :)

Day #4

Again, not much time! It's so late! Ah! Will post more later... one of these days. When I have more time. But the main thing is, this was another successful day. :) And so will tomorrow be, likely, if I can ever get to bed. :-D



These cupcake pictures are *some* of what I've been working on this week. The main thing is yet to come, so hold on to your hats! I'll probably post pictures on Monday.

Also, just so you know-- I try not to get online at all on Sundays, so I likely won't be updating the blog tomorrow.


Thanks for keeping me accountable, y'all! Knowing that people can read these posts helps keep the fire of motivation ablaze. It's awesome.

Later!