It has been a week since I have blogged. Since last week everyone in my family has come down with some sort of sickness. We spent today cleaning everything in the house. The kids are getting better. The runny noses and coughs are almost gone. I will be happy when everyone is back to their regular old self.
It has been a chaotic week here in our lives compounded by the fact that the tradeshow will start in less that three weeks. I am calm but yet at times feel like I am forgetting something. Oh well, I am going to roll with it. Even with the best of planning, thinking on your feet is a necessity.
With 2012 I told myself I would work on a couple of things in my life. Here is a partial list of what I want to accomplish:
1. Run a 15k (done and signed up for a race in February - have been running consistently the last 2 weeks so I should be ok if I keep my workouts up).
2. Work on spending more time with my parents. I will be honest, my family is sorta a "doing" family - we are a family of multi-taskers and just sitting around visiting isn't our strong point. But I have made an effort to just sit with my dad and mom even if they don't want to talk or whatever. I have avoided them the last couple of days just til everyone feels better.
3. Go on more date nights. I want to invest more time in my relationship with my husband. Even though we work together, I am in work mode when we are working. We are going to try to go out without the kids, not talk about work 1x a month.
4. Work on my photography - now this is something I have had on my to do list for a while. I finally invested in a cheap fixed lens at the end of last year. I think I might take an online course to learn about all the features of my camera.
And with number 4, I have also been getting tips from my design team. I had asked late last year Karen Grunberg to share some tips with our customers on how she can photograph her layouts so well. Here is her blog post.
While I don't have quite the set up Karen has, I did find a place where I have light from 3 sides on a good day in our reading nook. The problem was there was not a wall where I could hang a layout so I looked around and improvised. My kids keep their IKEA easel here so I can watch them while I cook and such and I found it was the perfect place to photograph:
I stick the layouts on and photograph and we are good to go! The only problem is when I leave my layout and tell my baby girl "now draw only on the white paper and not the layout ok?" to which she agrees but then I end up with this:
A closer look - I think she wanted us to "go green":
I laughed at first when I saw this. Things like this don't bother me. I am sure we will have a good laugh about it when she gets old. This layout might even come with us to CHA for display.
As we finish up our catalog, I realize that everything we are doing are items I would use for my projects. Love them all. Our design team is rocking all the projects too and I cannot wait to share with everyone.
Man I KNOW what you mean~~here in Nebraska me and my WHOLE family have all been sick this last week too!! My husband had his b-day on monday and we usually go out to eat and we all stayed in. Hoping we are back to normal soon too!! THANKS for sharing the info and you are SO GOOD about not freaking out!! I probably would have freaked at first, then realized that this was going to be just as memorable some day!! =)
Here's to a FABULOUS FEW WEEKS!! Can't wait to see all of the goodies for CHA!! =)
Posted by: Larissa Heskett | January 13, 2012 at 01:19 AM
We've been sooo fortunate here, everyone has stayed healthy. We have had our share of winters full of sickies, and I can totally empathize with you!
I can also totally relate to further 'embellishing' of my layouts by the kids. lol
Hang in there! Hugs to you and your family as you support your Dad in his battle.
Posted by: Jillian A | January 15, 2012 at 06:08 PM