This Year mini-book

Shimelle, the woman who gave us "Journal Your Christmas," is offering a free online workshop to make a mini-book about yourself. It is her way of saying "thank you" for all the fabulous things that have come her way from "this crazy scrapbooking thing." This class is open to anyone, whether they have taken any of her classes in the past or not. All you have to do is click here and it will take you to her blog, where she will be posting the assignments. She's already posted the supply list; most scrappers probably already have a lot of the supplies in their stash!

JYC days 9, 11, 15, 16

Well, we have our 2nd day in a row of no school due to "severe windchills" - somewhere between -25 and -35 F. My 13-year-old DS, Jarrett, just now woke up at 9:53 am! Since we're inside today, I decided to show you a few more of my Journal Your Christmas pages. I pretty much stayed caught up on making the pages, it's just that blogging them was a low priority. Since I have a lot to show, I'm only going to post pictures of the ones I really like.

Day 9 was traditions. I just love that red and cream paper! It looks very traditional to me. The journaling says, "Handprint blanket, Advent calendars, Christmas books in basket, Christmas, music, Birthday cake for Jesus, Stockings, Nativities, Christmas Eve Service, Pretzel m-n-m treats"

For day 11, I used this pretty Christmas tree lace paper. Journaling says, "We finally got our tree up on Saturday, the 13th. We have an artificial, pre-lit tree. For the first few years of our marriage, we bought real trees. But neither of us enjoyed the process of finding a tree: trying to decide which tree would look good while we were freezing. Then, the first or second year that we lived in our white house, the trunk of the tree was way too big in diameter to fit in the tree-holder. We chopped it narrower, but that killed the tree. It lost pine needles left and right. After that, we decided to go the easy route and buy an artificial tree. Works for me!"

I totally deviated from Shimelle's prompt on the 15th. It's my wedding anniversary, and that's more important to me than whatever she suggested we journal about! I wrote, "Today is our 18th Anniversary. What were we thinking, getting married 10 days before Christmas? I finished student teaching the Wednesday before our wedding. We didn’t want to get married the following Saturday, only three days before Christmas, and if we waited until the Saturday after Christmas, that wouldn’t have left us with much time for a honeymoon, with Mike’s teaching and coaching schedule. And there was no way we were waiting until Spring Break! So the 15th of December it was.

Even though our anniversary gets a little lost with Christmas (Mike and I usually end up going out for dinner and then Christmas shopping for the kids), I wouldn’t have it any other way. Our December wedding was absolutely gorgeous. And now, we get to take a night out from the holiday festivities just for us."

I also deviated from Shimelle's prompt on the 16th. Four years ago, my parents moved 1800 miles away to Arizona. Each December since then, my Mom has sent us a care package of home-made goodies. Then a week or so later she'll send a package of gifts. Since the care package arrived on the 16th, I had to share that. My journaling says, "getting a package of homemade cookies, fudge, and caramels (along with a DVD of Christmas 1986) from Arizona!"

In other news, I got my washing machine on Friday!!! Over Christmas Break, Mike finished tiling the laundry room floor, so we ordered the washer and it's here. My dryer is supposed to come this Monday. After spending about 2 hours at the laundromat every weekend for the past 5 1/2 months, I have such an appreciation for having my own machines again:)

JYC: One little word

When I saw Shimelle's prompt for today, I knew exactly what to journal about: the "One Little Word" that I've chosen to focus on in 2009. LOVE. See the post from yesterday for more information about "One Little Word."