Wow! It’s a little embarrassing that I haven’t updated my Weekly Creativity Challenge for 3 months! It’s not that I haven’t been creative; it simply is that my blog took a backseat to school, my online classes, my CTMH club, and my sick kitties. I’m on winter break now, so I’m going to get back into the swing of posting.

9/20-26 ~ Complete the Telling Stories Deeply and the Learn Something New Every Day class prompts. Create digi LOs for Learn Something New.
Although I didn’t do any of the Telling Stories lessons, I did manage 10 digi LOs for Learn Something New. I also went on a bit of a digi shopping spree. I’m technically not a digital scrapbooker, but I have purchased a ton of digi elements, papers, PDF files, Etc. over the past few months. Not really sure what that is all about other than the fact that most of the items are $.25 at Designer Digitals…LOL!

Blog ~ Post digi LOs. Blog “The Great Escape” story!
How is it possible that I STILL haven’t written about “The Great Escape”? Seriously!

CTMH ~ Finish card kit and Twitterpated WOTG.
I finished ½ the card kit and both Twitterpated LOs. I am absolutely in LOVE with those LOs and will post them during break!

I really wanted to get caught up on my digi LOs today, but this was all I was able to finish. I need to spend the rest of the evening exercising and grading papers…fun times!

I rotated the designerdigitals.com template I used yesterday since this LO will be on the facing page. I also included a free pocket from their What’s in Your Pocket challenge. I had to reduce the pocket a great deal since the photo of my card had been saved for the internet. That pocket is such a clever design. I can’t wait to print out my book when I’m done and see how it looks on the page.

I saw a news segment on the 7th about a woman who reinvented herself by publishing her first novel at 45. I need to reconnect with myself as a writer. Neal and I have spent the past week brainstorming story ideas, and I’m getting really excited about writing again! Learn Something New Every Day is motivating me to write in my journal daily, but I haven’t started writing any fiction yet. Perhaps that will be my goal in October after this class is over.
On the 8th, I rediscovered that, in the greater scheme of life, true friendship matters most! I may not get to see Karen or my few close friends very often, but they are always in my heart. I’m so blessed to have such wonderful women in my life! Neal took this photo at our house during a scrapbooking crop the day after my birthday. It is one of my all-time favorites!
I purchased this template from Digital Designs for $.25 today! I would love to get the entire series of templates, but I can’t justify the expense since I’m not really a digital scrapbooker. I guess I’ll just keep watching for sales.

These are some self-portraits after my first day of school on the 9th. As I was driving home, I was thinking about the fact that I had a cute new outfit for the first day and no one to take my photo. Well, I wasn’t going to let that stop me. LOL! The mirror photo is blurry, but you can still see my cute Eddie Bauer outfit. I’m determined to look more professional this year as I work toward my CTE certification. I have a feeling that Neal is going to be shocked by my clothing purchases this year!

Shimelle’s prompt was about what we can learn from our feet. It amazes me how right on target her prompts always seem to be with my life. For instance, Neal and I were watching football and one of the players was carted off with a foot sprain. I was thinking to myself how horrible it would be in everyday life let alone as an athlete, and then I open a prompt about feet! My lesson came this summer when Neal and I hiked up Multnomah Falls. During the entire 4 mile hike, I didn’t experience any pain until we were on the way DOWN…my feet were killing me!

Sadly enough, I continue to waste time on the computer. When I first took this class, I ended up with 6 pages about getting off the computer and spending time exercising, enjoying nature or doing something productive. Three years later, I’m still giving myself the same advice…I see a problem here! Neal has challenged me to leave my computer off on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will still have to use the computer at school, but those evenings at home will be spent reading, crafting, Etc. I’m going to try to start tomorrow if I can finish all my school work at school. Wish me luck!

Neal got a little annoyed with me the other night. After exercising, I said I was going to take a quick shower. Well, our versions of quick showers don’t exactly match, and he had to come up and tell me to hurry because dinner was ready. It’s a good thing he loves me!

Side note: I am using much more white space on these digi LOs than I do when working traditionally. It is very strange for me. It will be interesting to see how I feel about the pages when they are printed and in a book.

I had such a busy summer with my online course, travels, and CTMH events that I never started a “To Do” list. Now the summer is over and I realize that I didn’t accomplish much around the house. Oh, sure, I did a little cleaning, but I didn’t do any big projects. Now I’m back to life as a busy English teacher and will be swamped with grading and meetings. Hopefully my computer ban on Tuesday and Thursdays will motivate me, but I still need to make a list!

Shimelle’s Learn Something New Every Day class started again on September 1st. I first signed up for this class in September of 2006. That was an incredibly eventful month in my life, and I’m so thankful I was taking her course, because I journaled every day. I didn’t, however, finish my daily pages. In fact, I completed the book during Lain’s Layout a Day Challenge in May…of THIS year! Yikes! So, my goal for this year is to journal daily and finish my book by early October. I came to the realization last night that I simply don’t have time for traditional scrapbooking, so I’m going to go digi for this project. It isn’t my first choice, but it is far more realistic at this moment in time. Plus, Shimelle has included some great digi downloads for this class, including PDF files for the LOs. That is going to save me a lot of time.

After taking Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects from Jessica Sprague, I got pretty excited about playing around in Photoshop. In fact, I’ve downloaded a bunch of free digital designs and have even purchased a digital kit and some embellishments. Now, mind you, I’ve only ever created two digital LOs in my life! LOL! So, I’m going to use the Learn Something New class to work on my journaling and to hone my digital skills. I’ll stick with Shimelle’s LOs for the first couple of weeks since school is starting, but then I may try to come up with my own designs.

To save myself some time, I’m using the Ana Reis Designs “I Heart You” kit. I purchased both the paper and embellishment kits because I loved the doodle hearts.

My first page deals with the presentation I gave to our staff about metacognition. I felt good about the presentation but didn’t think it was amazing. Throughout the day I was given a lot of positive feedback. My colleagues made me realize that I do a good job and that I should have more confidence. I’m using a horrible photo from a Web 2.0 presentation I gave at a business education conference in May. Yeah…people should NEVER be photographed while they are speaking!

My learning continued at our school district teacher training on the 2nd. I co-presented a workshop on lesson planning using Project CRISS and then went to a workshop about ways students hook us into power struggles. The presenter talked about being intentional in our emotional lives. Negative thoughts impact everything we do even if we don’t say them out loud. This made me think about my health and approaching it from a positive POV (e.g. I’m not trying to lose weight, I’m gaining muscle, tone, and a firm core!).

This is a photo from my classroom in May. The presenter also talked about seeing your most difficult student as your greatest teacher in living an emotionally intentional life. Brilliant!