Technology....blog signatures and banners, oh my!

So today was quite a frustrating computer day for me! There were a couple things I've wanted to get done for at least a week (or more now):

1.) Put up a banner in my Etsy shop.
2.) Make a signature for the blog.

Two things which have MANY blog posts and websites with directions on how to do. Which you'd think would make the processes easy-peasy. Well I don't think I'm a computer idiot [no expert by any means either] but after trying to accomplish these two things today I sure felt like one!

And not to mention in the midst of these projects today, while taking a break to feed the chiklits lunch, I came back to my laptop to find it frozen! My ONE YEAR OLD laptop! FROZEN!!! And yes (as DH asked me immediately) I had rebooted literally the other night! So after doing a force quit I turned the computer back on to get a black screen - NOTHING!! NADA!! I've never been in a situation where I was on the midst of crying over a computer (ok well once when I lost an entire term paper in college b/c I forgot "the rule" - save frequently and often). But thank God Dave, after 20 min. on the phone with computer support and $60 later my computer was up and purring! The problem: Static friction - yet another reason to hate winter! So if you ever have this problem call Dave - he'll only charge you $30!

But I'm happy to report I FINALLY [literally 2 min. ago] finished the last of my two tasks! Thanks to this wonderful website I now have a blog signature. Not sure why I didn't fall upon this website this afternoon. Fell upon about 50 others that were useless and uber frustrating to me but...at least I can sleep happy now!
And I made my lovely signature using this fun site.

And after weeding through another handful of sites and playing around wasting my time on Photoshop and some other free photo editing sites I fell upon a website that recommended this site. AWESOME!! Made it as easy-peasy as it should have! Not sure if I'm totally happy with what I came up with for my banner background so I may play around with that later. But for now I'm just happy to have a banner since they say that is the first thing you should do when setting up your online shop.

Although I've gotten quite a few sales from people I don't know before putting up a banner. But hopefully this will help make my shop seem more legit and I'll get more hits/sales. Maybe there is some truth in "needing" a banner because today I got 130 hits, 2 new shop favorites, and 8 item likes! Which is the most I've ever gotten in a single day. Yippee!!

Enough of this computer crap....off to spend some QT with my sewing machine!

Bag #2

This is mainly what kept me from any blogging last week:

I had a big Etsy order to make and ship off to Canada that consumed all my nightly hours last week. And I was lucky enough to kill two birds with one stone - make AND sell bag #2 of my 52 bags in 52 weeks project! This project all started thanks to 'lil sis starting a fire under my ass when she saw I only had 1 bag on my Etsy site (which was supposed to be all handbag based!) So my goal for 2012 is to make (knit, sew, crochet) 1 bag a week. As time goes on I'll see if I have to bend any rules! And we'll see come Dec. 31 how I did!

Bag #2 took me 3 nights of ripping out 4 inches worth of knitting, 5 different time before I even started knitting it to my liking. Hopefully it's new owner will be very happy with it!

But no fret, while I was busy with my order I was still taking my pictures for my project of capturing an ordinary day every day for 366 days! And I was even lucky enough to catch a "first" of H's last week!

D10/366 - 11 months old, H pulled herself up in her crib for the first time!
I put H down for her afternoon nap, then put V down for her's, turned around and to my surprise this is what I saw!

It was actually a big day for H. She learned to crawl up our stair later that day!

Just a couple more of my favorites from the week:

D11/366, Jan. 11 at the beach!


D15/366

I tried the "10 for 10" project on the 10th and I wasn't happy with my efforts. (1) I wasn't able to be consistent with taking a photo every hour [I can't always just up and leave to find something creative to take a picture of when the clock strikes the hour with 11 month old twins] and (2) I was not at all creative about it [which I only realized after I saw the pictures Tiffany took]. So I may try again next month. We'll see... at least I have an entire month to figure it out.

D363, 362, & 361!!

So I have to do a little bit of catch up b/c surprise, surprise I got behind! But I have been taking my pictures!

It's just been a crazy week with Dave coming home later than usual from work, which then effects my work night, and I've had some projects I needed to work on - new stuff for my Etsy shop and two special orders I'm very excited about! And actually I should be working right now but being the weekend I know I'll have a few extra hours (girls nap time) to get some work done.

So I just couldn't wait to get on here to post my pictures and write a little. I have to say I'm loving reading all the posts and ideas for the 52/366 projects and it is giving me so many ideas (like I really need anymore of those!) and really making me think about what I want to do with all these photos when I'm done and what I want to make of this project. Just be more aware of my days? My girls growth; because if I could I would put it on pause in a heartbeat!? Improve my photography skills? (Of course! But since I take most of my photos on my iPhone with either camera+ or instagram I'm not sure I would really call that photography!) I'm still not really sure what this project is going to evolve into. I just hope I'm able to make it the whole 366 days.

And one of the ideas I picked up today from Tiffany is "10 on 10" - 10 pictures in 10 hours on the 10th of every month. Not sure if this project appeals to me more b/c my girls were born on the 10th and every month for the last year I've done a photo-session with them on the 10th. So this would just be a continuation of my current tradition with the added twist of a picture every hour. I may just have to try this out! I like the idea of catching an entire ordinary day every month. Just not sure how interesting and exciting I can make this though.

Now for my last days pictures:

D363: Apparently I just wear this kid out! I put her down for her nap and she started playing with her stingray, I went to get her sister and came back to find her like this - totally passed out in less than 2 min.!

D362: Home away from Home - work! After a week off with little to no help from DH (due to his crazy work obligations) I came to miss my few hours I am guaranteed to get out of the house! It really is a love/hate relationship I have with work. But I know how lucky I am to have the steady income, amazing benefits, and a boss who allows me to work such a crazy schedule so I can spend so much of my day with my girls.

D361: My solution for keeping V from unfolding all of the clothes I folded [and refolded and refolded, after she crawled through my piles throwing all the clothes around! It's amazing how quick she is.] It has only taken me 5 months to come up with this. That was a lot of refolding I wouldn't have had to do....

D364

So I'm super tired and it's 12min. to 1am so I'm not going to write much today...

I did finish my first bag for my little 52 bags project! And boy all the "love" that went into finishing making that bag I think is what wore me out tonight!

And I got a few pictures for my 366 project today but not the one I had planned in my head, hopefully tomorrow if I remember to take the shot! I still am happy with my pick though, I feel like it captures V's personality. Her "What mom? I'm not doing anything wrong!" ~ which is in fact every time I turn around! Beware when they are being really quite, they are for sure getting into something they shouldn't be. And the smaller they are the easier it is for them to fit into all the great hiding spaces.

Resolutions already broken!

So it's only the second day of the new year and I've already had to break a resolution: signing up for the NYC marathon lottery. I'm still torn and a little on the fence but when I found out this years steep entry fee {$266} I began to re-think the idea. It is an AWESOME race and I love it so, so much but the last time I ran it, in 2006 it was $160, last year it was $200 which was hard to swallow but I was willing and then for it to have gone up $66 more a year later without garanteed entry and harder qualification times I'm thinking a rebellion is in order! But have no fear, I'm in search of another fall marathon...Maybe Hartford (most practical), Philly... Besides the steep entry fee I don't know how well my first marathon post-babies is going to go and I don't want to run a bad NY if I'm not able to get into the shape I would like to be in for a marathon. So we'll have to see what comes of my training and which marathon makes the most sense for me to run this year (if any).

While we're on breaking resolutions; I didn't make it into bed by 1am last night either...better luck tonight! Although there is a bag I want to get finished so I may be a little late again, since I don't have the will power to leave a few finishing touches until the next day. After lil sis went on my Etsy site to check what I had going on and reported back she thought there'd be more bags it got me thinking I DO need to get sewing more bags. That really was the whole thought/idea behind starting an Etsy site. So I'm challenging myself to make a bag a week - 52 bags this year!! Off the top of my head, I started sewing bags about two years ago and I think I have made 15 bags. 52 - lofty goal, we shall see.... Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pics of bag #1!

And for my 366 pic project; picture D365:

Emma-lou's 3rd birthday celebration!
Incredible how much a little girl can grow in 1 year! It's so awesome to watch from the sidelines and it makes me so excited for what our future has in store for us with V & H.

A New Year, New Resolutions

With 2011 behind us my sister and I had a conversation about the best thing of 2011. And we both agreed on this one:

I will forever be grateful for 2011!

And before I go into any new resolutions I wanted to take a look at last years thoughts and see how I did! I have to say I'm pretty happy with myself.

Things I need to continue to work on for this year include:
1.) Communication!!!

2.) Working on my Etsy site. There is so much I want to get done and get put up on there but I'm only 1 person and I only have 4 hours a night to work on my projects [and post them on Etsy which is a project all of it's own!]

3.) Giving more love to my furbabies. They (as well as DH) get the brunt of my anger. Somedays the added dogs wrapped around my feet while I have 2 kids hanging off of me just feels suffocating. But really how lucky am I to be so loved and so needed?! It's hard to think this after a incident when I nearly fall on top of a child after tripping over a dog.

4.) Finding my love of running again. I've done well this year with my awesome BOB duallie, including running a 5K with V & H, but a few things happened that stalled my running. The first was getting back to my pre-preggo, pre-trying-to-concieve weight (my biggest and only reasonable motivation). The second was hurricane Irene wrecking havoc through the neighborhood I run. And the third was not knowing the high school was getting out half day and fearing for my children's lives as we were running home (as I have to run through or by the entrance/exit of the high school). I also need to take the dogs for their morning walks beforehand and after an hour walk..... ALL excuses though, so I will be signing up for the NYC marathon lottery tomorrow which will be motivation to start training seriously again [or at least I hope].

5.) The kids/spouse/furbaby/work balance.

6.) I would like to find time to read again somehow. I'm toying with the idea of audiobooks so I can craft while "reading" in my nightly 4 hour time slot. Although I love reading and getting lost in novels so much I'm having a hard time even thinking about listening to a book. Although I like being read to.... Ugh! Just gotta bite the bullet and try it!

7.) Get my girls 1st year photobooks done by March.

8.) I've joined a photo-a-day project and I hope I'm able to keep up with it. And even blog about it which will kill two birds with one stone b/c then I can be a better blogger/writer. Because one thing I sure do miss is writing.

9.) Focus. I feel like I have my hands in many projects and things all at the same time. My eyes are too wide and the hours in my day are too short.

10.) Eat healthier.

11.) Go to bed by 1am every night.

12.) And probably the thing that will be hardest: weed out the people who do not have a positive influence on my life because one thing I had to fight really hard to keep some days in 2011 was my mental health.

I figure if I keep my list short and sweet it won't set me up for failure!
And to end on an even more positive note:

My first picture for my 366 day project (yea, for the leap year!!)

Tunnel fun!

And here are a couple more from today b/c I caught some good ones!




And H was so tired from all the playing she fell asleep eating lunch!