"Twenty Wishes" & An RAK

I just finished reading the greatest book. It's called "Twenty Wishes" by Debbie Macomber. It's about a group of widows who get together on Valentine's Day to celebrate themselves and their lives. One of them comes up with the idea of making of list of 20 wishes - things they've always wanted to do but never got the chance to, or things they want to do now that they're single again. The wishes didn't necessarily have to be things they would do, just things they wanted to do - places to go, people to meet, things to experience. I guess in a way this would be similar to a "bucket list". (It also reminded me of a blog entry written by scrapbook.com's weekly columnist about 29 things for her 29th year). The book got me to thinking about what I'd put on my list of 20 wishes. Here are five:
1. Swim with dolphins.
2. Learn to horseback ride.
3. Go hot air ballooning.
4. Take more German lessons.
5. Visit New York City and go to the top of the Empire State Building.

Now it's your turn! Leave me a comment with at least three things that you would put on your list. I will put all of the entries into a hat, and draw a name to receive a copy of the book. The deadline for entering is next Sunday, May 3. Good luck!

TTFN!

National Scrapbook Day 2009

Ooohhh...I can't wait for this! A whole day of scrapbooking for me. And the best part is... I don't even have to leave home for it! Now, NSD is actually May 2, but since I won't be able to go to any events that weekend, I'm going to make it up to myself and have my own NSD the following Saturday while Mom and Dad are in Spokane. I'll have the whole house to myself (well, except for the furbabies, that is) and I can spread my stuff out all over the kitchen and leave it there all weekend if I want. I may even start on Friday! Now I just need to decide what I want to work on. My BOM, my smile book (I just bought the most awesome Jolee's Boutique butterfly stickers for it), my Words of Encouragement album, my faith album... there are just too many choices! I may take a stab at the other two layouts I need to do for the Faithbooking Friends group over at scrapbook.com - I want to go back and do the layouts for "love" and "joy" that I missed out on because I didn't know about the group. I'll be doing some posting over the weekend, here and on my craft blog, so stay tuned for updates. And speaking of updates, watch my craft blog for pictures of some cute Mother's Day projects that I did with my Sunday School class - there's a cute flower pot (which was last year's project) plus a card and a decorated picture frame, which we'll be doing in a couple of weeks.

TTFN!

What's your word?

I stumbled across another blog/journalling challenge over at scrapbook.com, and one of the first challenges was to go to www.blogthings.com and take a quiz to get your word. Here's what the quiz told me:

Your Word is "Peace"

You see life as precious, and you wish everyone was safe, happy, and taken care of. Social justice, human rights, and peace for all nations are all important to you. While you can't stop war, you try to be as calm and compassionate as possible in your everyday life. You promote harmony and cooperation. You're always willing to meet someone a little more than halfway.

What's" Your Word?

Wow, is this me or what? I'm always somewhat sceptical about these things, but this one hit the nail right on the thumb, as they say!
TTFN!

My new craft/scrapbooking blog!!

I decided that my scrappy and craft projects needed their own place to be shown off. So I created Jen's Krafty Korner for exactly that purpose. The first few projects you'll see are the ones that I've already posted here, but I hope to have some new projects very soon! Come check out my creative endeavors, and let me know what you think! You can find them at: www.jenskraftykorner.blogspot.com.

TTFN!

Layout Journalling

Here's the journalling from my "Short Stuff" layout; I realized after posting the picture that you couldn't actually read it, even in the close-up:

"Short stuff, pipsqueak, midget, squirt... I've heard them all. If you had asked me when I was younger what the worst thing about me was, I would have said definitely my height. I hated being short, and I used to wish I was taller. I got teased in school a lot because I was always the smallest kid in class; at least until High School, when I had a friend that was shorter than I. Gym class was a special torment for me; I felt that my height (or lack thereof) really held me back: I couldn't make a basket to save my life, and I had trouble getting the volleyball over the net. Finding clothes that fit and still looked good was another challenge; the stuff that fit me was all for younger girls - not what you want when you want to be a cool teenager. And forget about finding pants that fit that didn't need to be shortened.

But somewhere through the years, a transformation has taken place. I'm not entirely sure when or how it happened, but I gradually became more comfortable with and accepting of myself. I think the change may have come about as I grew stronger in my faith, and I started to realize that I'm short because GOD wanted me that way and made me that way, and He doesn't make mistakes. I am what I am, and all the wishing in the world isn't going to change that. So I figure I have two choices: I can either spend my life wishing for things that will never happen, or I can accept and embrace myself the way I am. There's a Bon Jovi song with a line that says "like a favourite pair of torn blue jeans, the skin I'm in's alright with me". That's where I am - totally comfortable in my own skin. I like myself just find the way I am, thank you very much! (That being said, it's still next to impossible to find pants that fit without needing to be shortened.)"