reddy*made

renew.

A new year. While 2007 certainly might have been one, if not the most difficult years of my life-I am looking toward 2008 with renewed focus, energy, hope. For Aiden and myself. I took some time away from this blog - to step back and settle in a little bit, to life-which I wasn't doing much of at all. I was letting life live me instead of the other way around.

time for change.

I have a long list of goals for the year that I have been writing down in a small notebook and keeping in my bag as I travel. A "wish list for living" if you will. Priority number one being a refocus on finding outside care for Aiden. While school has certainly helped him leaps and bounds, he is not progressing as well as I would like in all things OT related-writing, tying of shoes, dressing himself etc. and he gets frustrated quite easily when things are not progressing at a pace that he feels ok with. He turned the big 6 late last year, and I sometimes worry that there is a "window" of learning that is quickly passing him by. Priority number one.

I am also excited to try my hand at creating scrapbook pages for others. I have been tossing around this idea for some time, and dabbled here and there at it a couple of years ago, but things are cookin' in the brain again and I am excited at what possibilities and opportunities it might bring. I have had some steady work from Loni, which is exciting, and am thrilled to make scrapbooking a bigger part of my life in the new year.

While I cannot say that I will be any better at updating this blog as I was last year, I most certainly will try.

Our holidays were good, quiet, and spent here in New York. There are still five or six presents to be opened that are waiting in the closet when Aiden feels ready. Our trees are still up (YIKES!), but they are fake, super small, and they make me smile, so what the heck? I do need to take them down this week.

Hoping that everyone has had a fruitful happy, productive new year thus far.

December

Woke up yesterday morning to find this. Hadn't been watching the weather so I was completely unaware that it was supposed to snow yesterday. Aiden and I had the chance to get out and enjoy it a little, and glad that we did because it has completely melted away from last night's rain.

Since we are going to be here in Brooklyn for the holidays, we also took the time to head to Target and get some holiday decorations. Seeing as our apartment is small, I decided to go for a tree that was..well, small.
We got two 3 foot trees and had a blast decorating them, although Aiden has pulled all of the stars off of the tree in the living room to play with. He picked out a couple of plastic green dinosaurs as his ornaments and those have remained in tact thus far. Give him a few days.... Target was a madhouse. I am surprised that anything was left..it was certainly slim pickins, but we had a blast.

Will snap photos of the trees later, I am off to work. NY1 news is coming into the job to do a piece on holiday gift wrapping and yours truly will be the one interviewed. Wish me luck.
Hope everyone is having a warm happy holiday season.

here I am.

Still alive and kicking.

Another threat from my mom to update this blog. Just finished a very busy training time at work, so things are starting to settle down - which is good. Had a fantastic Halloween (Aiden was a pirate this year...arrrrr!) My mom got the costume at Children's Place and it was a hoot. Had a chance to spend the afternoon at his school for the Halloween Parade. His costume was a HIT with the other children.

Also made some goodies for his class. The nice thing about there being only six children in his class is that you can splurge a little bit. They each got mini books from Making Memories to work on in class after all the photos get printed, a take-out box of treats decorated with a little piece of cardstock and a MM Velvet sticker, and a pumpkin cup (they were 1.99 at Target). Made up a little goodies bag for the teachers as well with some yummy chocolate and some Burt's Bee's Lip Balm. Fun stuff. Got a little crazy wrapping everything in cellophane. Aiden was a great helper - we have been working on his dexterity as much as possible, so helping me tie the ribbon, place the stickers on etc. was great practice for him.

Gearing up for a very low key Thanksgiving. Will be staying here, so still trying to figure out what the plans are going to be. Been scrapbooking a lot lately. Had my first page and a tag published in the recent December issue of Creating Keepsakes. Haven't had anything in that magazine in a looooong time, so that was nice to see in print last week.

Also been working hard for Making Memories on an upcoming project. Looking forward to seeing that one in print early next year. Hope that everyone is well and gearing up for a fantastic, family filled Thanksgiving.

Be well.

born on the 11th of october.

it's my party.

I'll cry if I want to.......?

Having a hard hard week.

hope.

Sharing this before I a. forget b. get too tired c. have to give Aiden his third bath of the day.

Like i said in my previous post, I ADORE this month's KOTM, designed by Ali. Love it. I know I keep saying that about all of these kits but I really do love them. It gave me a chance to once again delve into the realm of all things mini book (even though I didn't actually "see" the mini book in the bottom of the box until my pages were done) and scrapbook about someone who is my everyday hope, Aiden.
I plan on creating many more pages for this kit and keeping it in the special box it comes with for Aiden when he gets older. I added a few products that were not in the kit: the foam numbers are American Crafts Thickers. The green arrow is from KI. The quote stickers are from DCWV. Random black chipboard pieces from an older chipboard kit sold on QVC. The green letters and green "bling" circle are Heidi Swapp.The fonts are a combination of my favorites: Jailbird Jenna,Cry Kitty and Fabienestem - all downloadable for free on dafont.com .Everything else is included in the kit - simply amazing.

This is one of my most favorite projects I have done in a while - means so much to me.

loan.

(screenshot taken of the homepage of one of my student loan websites that will NOT stop calling and harrassing my family who are cosigners on my loan. Here today, here tomorrow it reads. I had to laugh when I opened the page to pay the bill this afternoon. So appropriate-definetly a daily something that I could do without).

Been a little mia as of late, focusing on Aiden, and work and scrapbooking. Diving in to all of it full force, which is nice. Got a chance to work on this month's KOTM again over a Lisa B's site. Defintely one that is near and dear to my heart.

Will post my contribution soon (maybe later today), thank you to Ali for making such an amazing kit and allowing me to be part of the folks who help showcase it.

Be around more soon..hope everything is having a great week.

KOTM travel.

My most favorite scrapbooker in the world, Loni S. invited me to jump on the minibook bandwagon by creating some samples with this month's KOTM - over on Lisa Bearson's Site. I love these kits - I really do. The Mega Chipboard and the 12x12 Kit are frequent go-to's when I am looking for that little added something on my page. This one is no different. While I am not a huge mini book person (ok, let's face it..I've made ONE in my life), I love the pieces in this kit so much, I stashed them away for use on my pages. The rub-ons go on so incredibly smooth - the textwork is clean, and bold, and I love love love the mini-dot rubons (someone just needs to come out with a huge book of just dots..heaven).
My printer was on strike when I created these, so I had to use older photos from my non-digital stash and of course, these were taken with the new camera, so they are blurry at best yet for some reason one of the photos came out perfectly clear...go figure. HA!

I cannot wait to see the well photographed images of everyone who participated later this week on Lisa's site. Some really kewl ladies worked on this one, so its always a treat seeing how everyone else interprets the material.

Be well, and happy travels.

wash.

(grandma got him these fishes from the AutismShop website. He ADORES them)

Lately Aiden has been super into take a bath. As a matter of fact - it is almost 2 in the afternoon on Sunday and where is he...yep, in the bathtub. There is not as much washing going on as there is splashing, and pretending to be a dolphin, and singing, "I spy", and tidal waves which result in me having to remove the bathmat and wring it dry with all my strength because it is incredibly sopping wet. He is also thrilled by the "footprints" he makes on the wood floor when he bolts out of the bathroom at warpspeed and jumps on to my bed.

Soaking wet.

Seeing as he stays in there for ridiculously long amounts of time - some cleanliness has to come out of it.

Surprisingly, as much as he seems to be in the bathtub, he has as of late started to get a little, well....musty. Are kids supposed to be musty at age 5?
I have been using a peppermint soap and Tom's Natural Aluminum-Free Deoderant which has been working well for him thus far, which is good. One of his favorite phrases as of late "I stink. Have to go home and take a bath" which I know is just a ploy for me to run the water again for him.GREAT.

I am sure there will be another bath today....if the bathroom rug, and mom, can handle it.

back to school....

Aiden's first day was yesterday. I made sure that his bookbag was all packed up with what he needed and got his notebook, "communication book" and all of his supplies ready for his first day. Decided to use an older SEI fun pattern this year for his things. He thought that d.j notebook was pretty cool.

He has the same teacher as last year, who I thought was wonderful, considering - and hope when I pick him up today that the last two days have gone smoothly for him. I know how difficult transitions can be. To end the last holiday weekend with a bang we had a fun day on Sunday at Prospect Park with a work friend of mine, Chrislie - who Aiden affectionaly calls "Crispy." Hadn't been there in a while and he had a BLAST. Good times.

(still working on the focus on this little camera...obviously)

My sweet mama got him a bunch of new things from a neat online shop called AutismShop, so he is going to be thrilled to have some new fun things to play with when he gets home today. I have also started making flashcards and placing them around the house with names of different object (i.e "door" flashcards posted on the door) so he gets more familiar with words and how they relate to the things they are named after.

Absolutely cannot WAIT to see him today after school. Miss him something horrible.

Hope everyone is having a great week.

"error 99 is B-A-D"

...said from the camera man in charlotte after taking my beloved digital rebel to a camera store. I was getting this error message everytime I tried to take a shot. (Imagine a THICK Southern accent and it makes it even more amusing, or daunting). It appears while we were vacation outside of Charleston, I stepped from a very cool air conditioned house to a hot humid sticky porch and tried to snap a shot. My shutter appeared to "lock" and I was unable to take photos the rest of the trip...wah wah wah. The camera man looked at me like it was obvious I needed to let my camera get used to climate change...um, no. I am surprised I even know how to use the thing, seeing as my technical ability is about that of a baboon. Then again, A baboon probably has one up on me.

Sending it off to Canon this week. Fingers crossed that it does not cost TOO much. Not in the budget to fix right now. In the meantime, I did get an early birthday gift of the Canon Powershot A560. Takes pretty dern good shots, albeit a little blurry..apparently there is a bit of a learning curve. Just have to get used to not looking through the VERY teeny viewfinder and use the big screen. Hard for me to adjust to. Did get a few good shots with it before we left for Brooklyn.

Hope everyone is having a good, camera working week.