December 1, 2013
by BulgingButtons 3 Comments

Scrapbooking and Fitness – When Worlds Collide {plus Fabulous Freebies}

Happy December! How odd to wake up with no pressure to post anything, no word count to worry about, no impending deadline looming. Yes, there’s lots of schoolwork to be caught up on waiting in my every present tote bag, but I’ll get it done. I aways do. Still, I had a few extra minutes to take my time as I read email, and I came across a gem by one of my favorite scrapbook divas of all time, Cathy Zielske. If her clean lines and graphic style aren’t enough to hook you, maybe her tag line on her blog will, “Taking the crap out of scrapbooking since 2001.” I love that.

Cathy has taught classes for quite a while, and I have been fortunate enough to take some of them. She has published books, and done all sorts of other super cool projects over the years. Well, this year she designed some terrific subway art printables for Christmas and Hanukkah (yay, cool Hanukkah stuff!) that she’s giving to her subscribers. In the email she also mentioned a class she’s teaching online at Big Picture Classes in January. The class? Move More Eat Well Jumpstart. Does the woman know her demographic or what?

Of course I had to click the link to check it out, and I have to say, for the $31 sale price I’m seriously tempted. It’s good eating, sensible movement, and cool scrapbooking in a motivating online community with a super cool real woman spearheading it. I could forgo a couple of Starbucks trips for that.

Here’s the thing, though, even if you don’t take that class, they have others, and some of them are FREE. How can you beat that? If you don’t like it or life gets in the way and you don’t finish it, NO GUILT. I love that! With holiday season here, maybe a quick class on organizing or streamlining techniques might be for you. There are also tons of e-books, and I downloaded a FREE one of those, too. Love it!

I swear, I get nothing for telling you about this super cool stuff, just the knowledge that maybe you’ll find something that tickles your fancy over there.

If anyone does sign up for the Jumpstart class, let me know. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a little group doing it together? I would like my buttons to bulge slightly less, and this might be a fun motivating way to get going again.

September 27, 2013
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Daily Passion Prompt 20: What Legacy Will I Leave?

TODAY’S QUESTION

For some reason I frequently feel like I’m totally forgettable. People I’ve met several times don’t seem to recall who I am. Have I left no impression at all? Am I invisible? Sometimes I wonder. If I don’t seem to leave much impression in life, how am I to leave any type of legacy after I’m gone?

When it comes to the big picture, we are all just tiny blips on the radar screen of time. We are born, we live, we die. Most of us leave behind loved ones who will mourn and remember us, but over time they too will expire and along with them, the memory of us will die. It’s as though our lives are a flame, warm and bright but fleeting. Some of us are like tiny birthday candles, snuffed out quickly and soon forgotten. Others are a bonfire, or even a forest fire. Some lives reach millions, for better or worse, others hardly reach beyond their own front doors.

Of course I want my family to remember me with love and tenderness, and I’m sure they will, at least for a little while. I do wonder what will become of me and my memory after I’m gone, but deep down I think I know. I came from nowhere, and I will return there. I was adopted at birth, never allowed to know anything about the circumstances of my origin. I simply appeared. I believe that after I’m gone a while, I will simply disappear, forgotten from the family history, possibly relegated to a footnote, or an asterisk on a distant relative’s family tree. I was a give away for one family and an add-on for another, and as such, perhaps easily dismissed by both.

Outside of my family, I hope to leave a larger legacy. I hope that somewhere out in the world at least a few of my students look back fondly on their experiences in my classroom. I hope they remember that I taught them something, or tried to make some lesson memorable, or even that I was goofy and silly in class. I hope that at least one person took away something positive from their time under my care. Sadly, I feel like the odds are against me on this point too. People grow up and move on. Rarely do they remember their fourth or second grade teacher making a mark on their lives. It seems the only time they do recall these people, they do so in horror.

Maybe this is part of the reason I write and quilt and scrapbook. These are all ways for me to say, “I was here.” I may just be one of those little blips existing in a tiny space in the universe until my own flame is snuffed out, but my life is important. I live and love and dream. I can and will leave my mark on the world, and I will do my best to leave it better than it was when I arrived.

September 15, 2013
by BulgingButtons 5 Comments

Daily Passion Prompt 10: World’s Best

TODAY’S QUESTION

What do you think you could be amongst the BEST in the world at doing?

This is a horribly difficult question. I keep thinking of things that I think I’m good at, but then I start to extend that thinking into the realm of best, and I shut down. I mean come on, I make great brownies, but amongst the best in the world? That’s a stretch.

I’m a good mother, and probably the perfect mother for my own particular kid, but am I amongst the world’s best? Only on a Hallmark card, I’m afraid. There are times that I allow him to do things that maybe I shouldn’t. There are times when I should be giving him more guidance than I do. There are times when I lose my cool with him. But really, he’s fifteen. Nobody’s perfect, right? Even the world’s best mothers lose it sometimes.

In terms of my other close relationships, I doubt that I rank amongst the world’s best at any of them. As a daughter, fiancée, sister, and friend, I’m sure I have plenty to be desired. I’m the one that forgets to send the birthday card. I’m the one who didn’t remember that you were having that procedure done today. I’m the one who should have called you yesterday. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. It’s just that I haven’t quite mastered putting reminders into my phone.

How about teaching? Could I be amongst the world’s best at that? Not according to the current standards of evaluation that are in place, at least in most American public schools. Within the constricts that teachers have, and with the amount of national testing that is done, I don’t believe that the way I teach my students will ever rank at the top of the ladder, not even in my own state, let alone the entire world. Honestly, I’m okay with that. I believe in what I do with my students, but I always see areas for improvement too. I’m not in it for awards or recognition, I’m in it to educate.

Well then, how about my hobbies? Quilting and scrapbooking are both creative outlets that I enjoy, but amongst the best? Not my quilting, that’s for sure. My seams don’t always meet quite the way they’re supposed to and my attempts at machine quilting, while they are improving, have a long way to go. My scrapbooking, while it has a crisp clean style that I like, has been on the back burner for so long that I hardly consider myself a scrapbooker any more.

So that leaves the written word. Could I hone my craft to the point where I’m a serious writer? Could I practice and improve to the point where my material is not only high enough quality for publication, but of enough interest to actually make it into the hands of readers? There is a part of me that thinks I can. Again, that “world’s best” is causing me some problems, but if I tone that down a bit, I see some potential. I read. I have read many books that have left me cold and thought to myself that I could do better. The difference, however, between those authors and me is that they finished their books and got them not only published, but sold. If they could do it, certainly I can too.