Blogalong with Effy - 1/31

Okay, here we go!  The fantastic Effy Wild is hosting a Blog-a-long for the month of August and I'm going to try my hardest to play along.  We will see though. lol  August is crazy busy for me and I am hoping that by doing some daily blogging, it will help me keep grounded in what's going on and what I want and need to do.

July proved to be a complete whirlwind and now that it's August first, I'm still reeling from the past few weeks.  My father passed away ten years ago this month and my mother has wanted to move up here to be close to her grandchildren ever since then.  It has been ten long years of her trying to make that difficult decision to move from her hometown to be closer to us.  And, after she finally decided to do it, things happened very fast.  In just a matter of a few weeks we went from signing the application for an apartment, to going down to Missouri and packing her up and just yesterday we unloaded the UHaul and moved her into her new place.  This is going to be a major change for us all and for the best, I hope! But, I'm hoping and praying that my Mom adjusts well and is happy with her decision to move up here.  I haven't lived close by to any of my family since I got married and moved away 21 years ago!

August is always an exciting and busy month for us.  August 1st means one thing.  School is just around the corner.  And most exciting of all, Autumn is finally almost here.  I absolutely LOVE Autumn! I love the colors, the smell of the leaves, Halloween, the cool breezes....every bit of it.  This August I'm experiencing two big life events at the same time.  One of the aspects of having children very far apart.  My middle daughter will be a senior in high school and my youngest daughter will be starting kindergarten.  They are 11 years apart in age.  Having children so far apart in age has been quite an adventure and sometimes very overwhelming!  My oldest will be 22 this month and my youngest will be 3 in January.  Whew. lol

So, with the beginning of this new month, I have lots of things that I've been wanting and needing to do all summer, but did a really good job of not accomplishing at all......I am very proud that I was able to do almost all of the cards for Index Card a Day from Daisy Yellow.  As of today, I am 7 cards short of 61.  I'm trying to decide if I want to do those 7 cards or just leave it at where I am.  I really wanted to do all 61 cards this year, but with my mom's move and being out of town for almost a week, it just didn't happen.  I was able to do several cards while we were at my mom's and I might have finished them all up except I didn't bring enough blank cards!  Oh well, I really had a blast doing my ICAD's this year and I'm hoping to sit down and take some time to fill out the questionnaire about our experience with ICAD that Tammy has on her blog.  I'll be sharing my answers here. :-)  Tammy is now doing daily art prompts and I'd like to try to do some of those, too.  I do love prompts!!! They always help me when I'm feeling stuck and not knowing what to create or where to start.

I'm also doing the online workshop's-  LifeBook 2013 and Effy Wild's Book of Days.  I'm terribly behind in both of those classes.....I spent most of my free art time the past two months working on my ICAD's so I'm hoping that that time can now be devoted to those two classes.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them both and really want to start working on the assignments for those two workshops.  I'm also doing Inner Excavation with Effy Wild and anxious to start working on pages for that as well.  I'm trying to do more real, written journaling....so much of what I do is just make pages but I have no writing on them.  It's just making the time for art that I struggle with.  There are so many things keeping busy and away from my studio.  I know a lot of that is just me and my lack of self discipline when it comes to managing my time well.....another thing to add to my list of things I want to work on......

So, my biggest goals for this evening are to get my planner up-dated for August and to attack the huge pile of papers that I've let take over the basket by my desk.  I'm getting ready to head over to my moms to help her unpack a bit.  I still can't get over the fact that going to my moms now only takes about 10 minutes and not 7+ hours. lol

I'm really not sure what I'll be sharing here daily.  Probably just what's going on in my life on that day, what my goals are and basic rambling.  Be sure to visit Effy's blog because she is having give-aways and other wonderful happenings that you don't want to miss!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy my month long journey into daily blogging!
Take care,
di