New Blog Look

I've been wanting to dress up the blog like so many others have done, now that the screens have been expanding in width, and finally got my inspiration from Nicole Young's blog (it's incredibly beautiful!) and from her post on customising your blog, see here. I loved the chance to fix up some of my most favorite layouts so I can enjoy them all the time! :) Thanks Nicole!

Frog in the Well

Yes, that's the latest collection of my 365 layouts all stacked up! Isn't it just fabulous? I just love that I will have this year entirely captured in pictures! I've already started to think what kind of album/theme I want to make next year! Now this blog is my other place for recording what doesn't get captured in the 365 album, like the thought of the week. :)

A "frog in the well"is a chinese saying that means someone who is so out of touch with the world and only knows his bit of the world but thinks that it is all there is. It is also the recent complaint of Jared, who claims that we are making him into a "frog in the well".
What an incredulous claim to come from our 10 year old! At first we thought it was so funny, but it made me think. It started one day at a bookshop when we would not agree to buy him the latest Pokemon Annual. Then he went on about how he no longer knows so many things his friends knows, that he is outdated, not able to keep up with the latest trends and fads (yes he knows the word), all because we do not allow and will not buy them any Nintendo, PSP, Wii or the like! He also claims Ryan and him are the only children in his entire school that do not have a mobile phone!! (I'm sure that is not true?) He cried a few times talking about this and seemed genuinely sad and feeling deprived.
What's a parent to do? In our efforts to protect them from the addictive influence of what we feel are stuff they can well do without, we are faced with the pull of the idea of not depriving our children. Are we being unrealistically strict, given the world they live in? Some say if they grow up deprived they will become even more addicted to what they could not have. I choose to believe if we give them much more of what we think is good, it will balance out what they do not get to have. Now giving them much more of what is good, that is the tough part!
Then again, Ryan is not complaining. So at least one kid thinks it is okay? Or maybe he is just more reticent by nature... :) . And so we press on, pray for God's wisdom, and are determined not to give in, (check back again in a year or so), even if that makes us frogs in the well!
Do you have similar struggles? Not over the same things perhaps, but something you want to hold on to, but are up against the pressures of the world? Thanks anyways if you read this far of my ramblings!

Finally here's my latest 365 layout. I got this particular page idea from the evernote site home page. I'm keeping to my theme of white background clean lines layout style for this entire album. It makes for fast scrapping and capturing of the year!
Credits: word art by Danielle D designs, papers all from Bren Boone, heart by Kate Hadfield, doodled border by Emily Meritt, alpha from Weeds & wildflowers.
Template 148 can be downloaded here.Leave me a comment if you download! Oh, for the folded corners, after you have clipped your chosen paper to that layer, lower the opacity, or change to overlay blending mode so the curved shadow shows through.

Enoughism

Two weeks ago, Jared was working hard on a social studies project on whether children really need all that store-bought toys, versus homemade toys and fun that can be had from things found at home. He chose the topic because he is fantastic at having fun from anything! His teacher tried to loosely wrap his project around the topic of "Consumerism" and he asked me what is Consumerism? That led to a fantastic conversation and discussion and we found this definition on Wikipedia: Consumerism is the equation of personal happinness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement called Enoughism.'" Now that led us to Enoughism which is defined on Wiki as: Enoughism is the theory that there is a point where consumers possess everything they need, and by buying more it actually makes their life worse off. Now isn't that a thought!
Jared surprised me by his understanding, and we talked about not buying any more toys unless he gave some away, and he reminded me that I have enough vintage rings already and I do not have enough fingers to wear them on (!) and moreover, my harddisk is bursting with the digital kits I've downloaded and bought (lol)! Finally Jared said, I don't think we have Enoughism yet, but I think what we have is TooMuchism!! I totally agree! Now to set the example (they are never too young to learn) to know "contentment with holiness is great gain".

On the Ryan front, he has since added 3 more phrases to his conversational repertoire since I did the layout two posts down (the strong and silent type). When he tries to tell me something and I take a while to get it, he says " Oh, never mind". When I ask him too many questions, he says "It's Classified". When I try to remind (ok nag) him, he says "Fine! Fine! Fine!" My friend tells me she read James Dobson's comforting words that our children may go mute as they enter deeper into their teenage years, but no worries, their vocabulary will return in time. That's comforting!
Actually for all his angst, he is a very wonderful boy, just last thursday, I got home so late and finally had my dinner at 10pm, after which he offered to wash up all the dishes, pots and pans for me, now that's the sweetest thing ever! So what if he is of very few words? :)

It's a little late, but I do want to thank everyone for making the sale a great one, thank you very much! I've been closing in on the deadline of a project at work, and working on a special 'project' on the designing front as well, so no layouts to show except for catch up on my 365. I've reused my last template (you can find it a few posts down) because I love it so much!




And this is what I came up with for the next two weeks. I honestly can't wait to complete this album and get it printed and hold it in my hands!! 4 more months (about 9 layouts for me since I do 1 layout per fortnight) to go!!





You can download it here. Let me know if I've helped you keep going in your 365 project!