lemons into lemonade

Last night around 8:30 pm John got called in to the hospital for an appendix. I was bummed as we haven't gotten to spend much time together lately and we had just sat down together to watch some TV. But I thought, hmm, I could either surf the TV for nothing on or I could go downstairs and craft! I normally don't craft in the evenings, but the few times I have lately (like with Mom or if John is on call or in bed early) I have enjoyed it. Knowing the house is quiet, kids in bed, just very peaceful. Plus with school out we (the kids and I) have gotten a bit later schedule of sleeping in the mornings. Yay! So, I got a ton done and it felt good to get my own quiet kind of PLAY time in. I repaired two sewing items, then sewed the raw edges of several yards of new fabric that I got while Mom was here that hadn't been washed yet. That room was a wreck so I picked up somewhat, including stripping the sheets of the bed and putting away fabrics. Then I scrapbooked a one page layout of me and Mom from her June 2006 visit, turned out super cute and was FUN to make - it's called Girl Time. I then made another July card. I still have 4 to go but I am way ahead of the curve where I usually am, LOL. I then scrapbooked another one page layout of a 5x7 pic of my sisters, me and mom in November 2006, called Just us Girls. I then scrapbooked a challenging 2 page layout for Asher's album. It was various pics, I think I was able to fit 13 of them on this 2 pager. I was very pleased with how it turned out. It was challenging because it was June 2006. There were so many photos I had weeded through and finally decided to just make a June layout instead of trying to make several layouts of different everyday events. Since I am so behind with scrappin', I have decided to be way more general with the older pics, like those from 2006, and lump them more in terms of season or month instead of special event. Unless there is just a pic that jumps out that needs to be by itself. I also am giving myself "permission" to scrapbook what I feel instead of feeling like I HAVE to scrap "in order" which let me tell ya, really takes the fun out of it, and isn't that the whole point? I am trying to balance it out and work on Allie, Asher and the Misc (need a good word for that one. basically it is the album that has me and John or landscape, etc - not based on one of the kids) and also balance working on recent pics versus older pics. When I got all that done it was almost midnight but I wasn't quite ready for bed. So I set all the new pics I have ordered over the last couple of months up on the table and thought, let's tackle some of this. They are still in their envelopes from Snapfish/Kodak. However, the problem is, I don't have a place to put them once they are sorted and tagged. I have 2 Cropper Hopper photo holders and they are full. One is pre-Asher pics and the other starts May 2003 when he was born and is sorted by Month/Year. So I thought, OK I am going to go through these pics that have already been scrapbooked and toss any that I am not crazy about, are duplicate, etc so I can then organize and put away the new pics I have ordered. So I did that up until June 2006 and 12:30 am!!!!!! And cleared out probably 30% at least. So that frees up room in that container. Down the road I may try to clear out the other Cropper Hopper, but it's harder as it contains pics of my extended family and I don't really think there will be any I want to get rid of, even if I never scrapbook those. One of these days I will do a childhood album of me, but that is just NOT a project I want to start right now. Because... I still have to scrapbook July - December 2006 for Asher and then all of 2007 for Asher other than a few layouts here and there that I have done. I have scrapbooked Allie from birth (end of January 2007) through April 2007. So I have her rest of 2007, Asher 2007, not to mention 2008 for both of them too and it is already JUNE. This is why I start feeling really overwhelmed with being backlogged - I can only imagine how people must feel that want to start this craft that have 20 years of photos that may or may not even be organized! Eek! Alright, it is 10:30 am and the kids have been playing nicely in the playroom so I could blog. Time to go outside and feed Penny and open up the chickens and maybe let Allie splash around in the wading pool. I filled it up with a few inches of water yesterday so it could be warming for today. It is already over 80 degrees out and supposed to be nice and sunny all day.