Project 365 - January

I've gotten sucked into something called Project 365. It's Becky Higgins’ January Kit of the Month. I don't have the kit but I want it....badly. But even without the kit, I'm still participating in Project 365 along with many others who were not able to get the kit either. I'm hoping that Creating Keepsakes has a reprint and I'll be able to get one....

I can just hear you asking... 'WHAT are you talking about?"

Who is Becky Higgins?

• She is a celebrity scrapbooker, seriously. I have her autograph and my picture with her. Here it is:

What is the 'Kit of the Month'?

• Creating Keepsakes creates and sells a 'Kit of the Month' designed by a well known scrapbooker and the scrapbooking community goes nuts the day it goes on sale.
  

Who is 'Creating Keepsakes'?

• Creating Keepsakes is a huge presence in the scrapbooking industry. They publish magazines and books. They have a product line, they hold annual conventions, much, much more.
  

How big is 'scrapbooking' ?

• CK created 7,000 Project 365 kits and they sold out in 3 hours. 7,000 kits x $35.95 per kit = $251,650. Don't you just WISH you could make $250K in 3 hours?!

• It's not just a hobbyist community, its a cult. We have magazines, conventions, classes, stores, celebrities, and contests...GOOD contests. Scrapbooker of the Year wins $10,000 cash, plus other prizes AND a 2 year contract with Creating Keepsakes. I liken the community of scrapbookers to that of Star Wars fans who dress up in character at Star Wars movie premiers, just a little obsessed...except we are worse, actually we are more like the people in New York on Black Friday who trampled other people to get into Walmart. We would do that if it was scrapbook related!

So what is 'Project 365'?

• The concept of Project 365 is to preserve a piece of your life every day this year. Traditional scrapbooks typically focus on events/trips/special occasions with decorated and designed pages...but all the everyday stuff that really makes up our LIVES gets lost between the pages. Project 365 is about capturing and recording ordinary everyday life. Every day, every week, every month…all year long. If you are interested, here is more information about Project 365. Here is an example of what a week would look like, if I had the kit:

Naturally, I'm late. I didn't decide to participate in this project until Wednesday, Jan 28th but I'm not letting this small detail deter me! What this post was originally about was to share what I've been able to capture for January 2009. I don't have any supplies to pull this together so for right now my Project 365 is digital, right here, until I can get the materials I need.

Here's what I've got for January, Project 365 by Julia Hull!

1/1/Thursday - 4th annual New Years Day Brunch, had a great time and great food with friends this year!

1/3/Saturday - The Hulls & Staffeldts drive an hour away just to eat at a Texas icon which can now be found in Scottsdale, Arizona-Dickie's BBQ, yummm, good food!!
1/4/Sunday - Nathan going down the slide in Rock Eternal's nursery, Crazy Aunt Lynn was there so Nathan was completely content! awwww......
1/8/Thursday - Happy 1 Week Birthday Eli!1/10/Saturday - The girls and I went shopping at Party City for the Reitzel's upcoming baby shower and couldn't resist this silly shot!

1/15/Thursday - Finished Eli's scrapbook for the shower, can't wait to give it to the Reitzels!
1/16/Friday - Josh and Julia enjoy dinner at 5 and Diner. Lynn, Greg and Nathan didn't. So we picked up a Schnepf Farms apple pie on the way home to make it up to Greg. Lynn and Nathan were just out of luck!

1/17/Saturday - Reitzel baby shower. A little bit of fun, games, chaos & mayhem made a great baby shower!
1/18/Sunday - Here I am taking pictures of Nathan's feet again, trying to get a fun shot for Nathan's birthday invitations......
1/20/Tuesday - Inauguration Day, I watch Barack Obama, stumble through the swearing in ceremony on CNNlive.com while I work at my desk.
1/21/Thursday- Rocco, the neighbors dog, who I am convinced is trying to drive me insane with his incessant barking the MINUTE I lay on the couch! (photo taken from 2nd floor screened window)
1/23/Friday - Sometimes I don't even recognize my house anymore, my kitchen table looked like this for DAYS....DAYS! I used to be so spic and span, neat & tidy...what has happened to me?
1/24/Saturday - Greg and Nathan both daydreaming about being on the water...
1/25/Sunday - I worked with the 3 yr olds at church with my official volunteer badge. Whew - so glad I passed the background check! ;)

1/26/Monday - Nathan playing with his workbench and safety goggles atop his head. Whenever I shout 'Safety first!' he giggles.
1/27/Tuesday - Greg and I watched 'The Davinci Code' with Tom Hanks. Our commentary went something like this.

Julia: "I can't believe all the controversary that took place around this...it's just a movie."
Greg:"Yeah, it's not like I really believe someone turned a DeLorean into a time machine!"
(Back to the Future analogy)

He cracks me up!
1/28/Wednesday - Greg dressed up for his part-time job interview at the SRP call center in Queen Creek. It didn't work out because the training would take place during regular working hours, interfering with Greg's full time job...but I give Greg credit, it was a good idea!
1/29/Thursday - Ping Pong, Greg whoops up on some friends WHILE holding Nathan at the same time! Whose the man? I say, WHOSE THE MAN? GREG IS!!

1/30/Friday - We take the day off from work and dedicate the time to working at our home group's Benefit Garage Sale.


1/31/Saturday - We finished up the garage sale and since I wasn't in charge of pricing, we made $410! Then I took family pictures for the Fifields later in the afternoon.

And that's it, that's what I've got for January 2009!

Happy Birthday Nathan

Nathan,
you are 2 years old today
its incredible
how much you've grown and changed

and how you've even changed me
i've become your mirror
when you smile, i smile

i love you sweetie
i hope you have a good birthday day today

~ Mommy~

Superbowl Sunday ends in Sorrow

Here is our humble gathering for Super Bowl XLIII. What you may not realize is that, prior to this season, only five of the 32 NFL teams had never reached the Super Bowl. The Cardinals had been on that short list of futility for six decades. Needless to say, it was a very big deal that the Cardinals finally made it to the Super Bowl! So we did our part to support the game by gathering, eating, cheering, and for the most part...yelling at the television.

Even Nathan understood the purpose of us getting together. Stare at the t.v. , then yell when everyone else does and he did a great job!



However, I do have to mention this...ten years ago, I accompanied Greg to a baseball game and I made the fatal mistake of taking a book with me. Ten years later, Greg still brings this up as if it were some moral failure on my part. I just want to point out that in the first picture below, Lynn is cross-stitching. Cross-stitching during the Superbowl that her home state team is playing in! In the second picture Josh is reading a magazine. Actually I asked to him to pose for the picture, but the point is that he actually brought this magazine with him!

Nathan was easily distracted as well, he played with his toys during the Superbowl. Then at some point during the commercials, someone asked why the t.v. picture had reduced in size and we were now seeing blue on the sides, at which point Professor Greg began his lecture on filming in high definition.


For fun, I thought I'd include this video of the last touchdown the Cardinals made, giving us hope that we could actually win the game....


Unfortunately, the Cardinals lost and our day ended in sorrow. We all agreed they played a good game and the fact that they showed up at the Superbowl was a great accomplishment.

Lighting is Everything

They say lighting is everything in photography...I'm a novice but I'm learning that this is so true. Some friends asked if I could take family pictures of them...why people trust me to do something like this, I'll never know. I said I would be glad to do it but repeated numerous times to them, "I'm not a professional!".

For some ridiculous reason I thought 4:00pm would be a good time to shoot...not really. The sun was still a couple of hours from setting and we were really struggling with the light and sun glares in the pictures. Case in point, see the picture below? Clearly, when your subjects are either squinting or covering their eyes, you need to move. This picture cracks me up when I look at it!

I took a series of pictures of the Fifields in this pose and some of them turned out decent...but....
Then, I asked everyone to yell 'Hey' and throw their hands up (my signature picture pose). Here's what I don't understand, I never changed a setting on my camera and I don't think that I moved from where I was shooting but for some reason, these pictures turned out dark!
Such a shame, because I thought this was such a cute shot but hopefully Photoshop can fix it.

The pictures weren't a complete bust though, here were some that I thought turned out pretty good.

Here was a shot that I liked because of Isaiah's expression in the picture.
So I cropped Andrew out and made the following picture.

Here was another shot that I liked, I really liked little Elsie's posture and expression so I cropped everyone out just to see what it would like.
She's too cute!What is my deal with feet?

This being my second time to take family pictures, what I find is afterwards as I look at the pictures, I really begin to notice my friends in the pictures. Maybe I move through life too quickly? In this case, I never stopped to notice how beautiful my friends smile is. As I looked at picture after picture, I just kept seeing this really beautiful smile....I need to remember to tell her!

Benefit Garage Sale - Part II

This weekend, we held part II of our benefit garage sale. So on Thursday night we brought everything together to get organized for early Friday morning. We opened shop about 7am on Friday and had a steady flow of business through Saturday afternoon. I'm very pleased to report that our hard working team raised $410! We had previously discussed helping a local family in need as well as donating to a small Philippines church that Rockpoint is supporting. Here are just a handful of pictures from our garage sale....