Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Update on my OLW (One Little Word) FINISH

Well, it has been a little over a month and I think I am making fairly good progress on my OLW (One Little Word - workshop with Ali Edwards). Not the greatest as I still have long spells of sitting aimlessly at my computer checking e-mail, scapbook galleries, Facebook, and then OH! did I get anymore e-mails?! Probably none that needed my attention in the 10 minutes since I last checked.

BUT, I did get some stuff done that I had been putting off for a LONG time.

1. FINISHed a scarf I started 14 months ago. It was supposed to be for a friend of mine who I have since learned is allergic to wool and can't even wear it. So, I guess I finished a scarf for myself!

2. FINISHed retouching an old torn photo for a neighbor. I had gotten stuck on the nose (where the tear was the worst) and put it to the side back in May. After resolving to FINISH the task I saw that the only way to fix it would be to find another nose which I pulled from an old photo of my mother. Yes! Where there is a will, there is a way.

3. FINISHed compiling photos of my youngest son's first year to send to my mother-in-law so she can scrap them. This is only slightly time consuming, but still takes the decision to do that task instead of my spells of sitting aimlessly at the computer!

4. FINISHed assembling and decoupaging my advent calendar after it sitting (giving me the evil eye) for 14 months. Now I have 14 months to decide what will go in each of the little boxes during the month of December.




5. This may seem like a little thing, but I had set aside four stamps quite a while ago (see a pattern here?) with the intention of putting them together in a frame. And when I mean set aside, I put them right where we charge our phones (so I would see them and not forget about them) where they looked up at me everyday asking why I forgot about them. Who knew inanimate objects could be so judgmental? My solution was to take a picture and create a piece of digital art, which I can now print out and frame whenever the inspiration strikes again. And the four nagging stamps? In the garbage.


























6. This is not a finish yet... but I picked up a pile of fabric off the floor (which was probably moved there when I needed the table in my craft room for the advent calendar project... which the cat decided felt soft enough to use instead of her litter box - yes, this is pretty gross... see what happens when you don't finish things in a timely manner?) rewashed it, and am ready to put this quilt project on my finish list for February.

7. I printed out and FINISHed slipping 180 scrapbook pages into their proper places (chronologically) in scrapbooks ranging from years 2006 to 2013.

8. FINISHed four weeks of the Project Life scrapbook album I am working on this year. The ONLY way I will finish this project is to keep up with it each week. We are in week six of 2014 (can you believe it?) and this week I will finish week five. Here is a glimpse of how I am doing the project (this is the left side of a two-page spread for week four.)



For those of you working with a word this year, happy OLWing! For those of you with resolutions to keep, good luck keeping them in the front of your mind and working them into your daily life!


Monday, February 3, 2014

MMGM: The I Survived Series by Lauren Tarshis

The I Survived Series by Lauren Tarshis.

What a great idea for a series. The author takes real life tragedies and builds a story around the event with a kid (the age of her target audience) as the protagonist in each. The stories she creates are well done with great characters. Throw in a little history lesson in each book and they are all winners. At least the three I read this past week were. My kids enjoy them too which is the best indication for success.

These are short books at around 10,000 words each, which is a great length for reluctant readers (as well as me when I am looking to finish a few books quickly!) I love that she adds in facts surrounding each tragedy at the end of the book and any personal experience she might have, for example that she was on a plane heading to NYC when the terrorist attacks occurred in 2001 (how scary!)

These are also fairly inexpensive books so I don't mind getting each new addition to the series when it pops up in my kids' Scholastic book order flyer! There are now nine books in the series.
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916
I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001
I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011
I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944


I have also read (and enjoyed) the other two books Lauren Tarshis wrote: Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell out of a Tree and Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love. So I guess I am just a big fan of this author! Check out her website here.






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Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) was created by Shannon Messenger. To find other bloggers participating in MMGM go to her blog for a list of links.