Five For Friday

Friday?  Um I wasn't expecting you.  I've been waiting all week for you of course but you snuck up on me this week.  I was not great at taking pictures this week so let's see what randomness I can think of...

Because I didn't take many pictures, my weekly scrapbook session might be a little tricky.  I use an AMAZING system called Project Life.  I'll have to do an entire blog post on it one of these days.  Basically it is a way to make scrapbooking easy and manageable.  The page protectors are divided into 4x6 and 3x4 slots.  The kits come with 3x4 journaling cards so you just slide in your pictures, write about the picture on the journaling card and slide that in place.  Boom.  Done.  Just like that.  You can add more pizzazz to it if you want but the idea is to keep it simple.  You can do it with any kind of scrapbook but when I first decided to do it (when K was born) it was designed to be a weekly scrapbook.  And so that's what I've done.  I'm on my third year of this format and love it.  And you'd never believe it but even with two little ones, I am caught up and every week of their lives are documented in our scrapbooks.  You can get more info about it HERE.

I tried this week to do less marketing/social media and spend more time creating.  I'm having such a hard time finding balance!!! But I cranked out several new products for my kindergarten centers I'm working on.  They still need to be proofread and locked down.  I keep debating if I post them right away or let my friend try them out first this fall.  I just know if I do that, it will be October probably before they start using them in class and I of course want to post them immediately.  

Our local TpT/blog meetup wasn't a huge success.  There ended up only being 3 of us due to school starting for some, pink eye for others, and crazy rain and weather.  It was still fun to chat for a bit with others who not only are in your area but totally "get" this crazy TpT/blogger world.  

As I mentioned, I've been trying to balance everything lately...spending time with my girls, working on my TpT products, blogging, cooking, cleaning, etc.  I'm having a hard time finding time for everything.  One of the things that has gone by the wayside since all my free time has been devoted to creating, has been reading.  I've always loved reading and hadn't really read much since before M was born.  So my husband and I have been trying to read in bed before we fall asleep each night and I'm LOVING it.  Now I feel like I can't fall asleep unless I read - even if it is just for a few minutes on the nights I'm exhausted.  I found a new author (Beth Kendrick) that I'm loving. I started with this one:

And then went back to the library and found these two:

I ran to the library tonight just before it closed to get another book by her since I finished the other one last night.  I would categorize her stuff as chick lit...I'm not afraid to admit it.  That's what I like to read.  I just like something light and generally happy.  I am bombarded with negatives and bad situations every time I turn the news on, so I generally like to read something light with an element of romance - you know the type...where the girl gets the guy in the end after several mishaps along the way.  It is like a romantic comedy movie but in book form.  I would love to see any of her books turned into movies.  

So this week I tried to add "working out" into my daily routine.  If you know me, you know I HATE to workout.  And this a fact makes a lot of people mad when they meet me.  I'm tall and thin...not because of anything I do.  I credit it all to a high metabolism and really good genes.  Because of that, it makes it way too easy to not work out because I'm not trying to lose weight.  But I know I need to do something to be healthier - I constantly struggle with back/neck/shoulder pain.  Before the girls were born we used our gym memberships several times a week.  I was having a lot of back problems and it seemed to help.  Then we got a dog and I felt like we should be out walking her instead of walking on a treadmill and then the girls came along and the gym was out of the question.  We walk several times a week around the neighborhood and it wears me out more than it should {though it is a lot of work to push a double stroller and walk a dog.}  So I decided to look for some YouTube videos that could help me at home.  K and I tried some zumba on Tuesday.  She loves dancing so she had some fun with it but wanted to do her own thing.  The next day I found a kid yoga video.  She got into it a little bit.  Today I decided it was easier to do it alone so I did a little zumba before the girls got up.  Any good at home workout suggestions that have worked for you?  

Have a great weekend.