Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

Link up, link back, say hi! 

1. I got my 2015 photo book in the mail yesterday and was so pleased with how well it turned out. Worth every penny! And it was a good reminder to start this year's now, instead of waiting until next January.

[made through mixbook]

2. Almost all the soreness from last weekend's half marathon is gone, but unfortunately my normal motivation to be active hasn't quite returned yet. Between the running and Sawyer not sleeping great this week (please let this be the last tooth for awhile...) I'm really tired. I finally got the energy to walk this afternoon and maybe I'll squeeze in a little yoga or time on the trainer later tonight. Tomorrow will be spent walking around the zoo, so at least I'll get in some steps there. Speaking of the race, Matt Damon ran it! I don't really get star struck, but I think the idea of watching a celebrity hoof it around like the rest of us peons is amusing. 

3. Sawyer and I have gotten to spend some time with two of my friends and their kids this week and it's so funny to see him interact with other kids. Both friends have babies and he talks in the high-pitched voice he uses with animals to them, and makes a big deal out of being super hesitant to touch them. It's a crack up (I'm very thankful he isn't aggressive or unkind to them... you never know with toddlers).

4. Oh, NEW HAMPSHIRE. Sigh.

5. I know a lot of people aren't in love with this new season of Serial, but I am actually really enjoying it. It's something different from my normal interests, and I think Sarah, per the norm, is fascinating. I hadn't followed the case at all before this, so it's all new to me (is it just me or are there some similarities with the first season of Homeland?). I am enjoying her updates regarding last season, too.

6. I have a confession: I've ordered four new books lately. I grabbed Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because I saw a student reading it and have always meant to. I got Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton because I loved her other two novels, and then I've seen such great things about Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno, so I grabbed that too. I had preordered Jhumpa Lahiri's In Other Words awhile ago so I didn't forget, and that arrived a few days ago. I should feel bad, but I don't. I can't even promise that I'll stop (I'm burning through Christmas gift cards). 

7. A few years ago Scott and I went to a place called The Pie Hole in LA and I got this delicious maple custard pie and have always wanted to replicate it. I found a recipe for a similar tart, which is just as good. Making it asap.

8. The week before we get our taxes get done I historically get greedy. While 90% of what we get will go into savings or will go towards home improvement-type expenditures, I think I will splurge on this bag and this chaise lounge for reading by the pool. Or, if we're being truly accurate, I'll say I will and then end up feeling bad and putting my fun money towards a student loan. 

9. Fuller House is going to be terrible. I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH IT.

10. My kid is blowing bubbles in the dog water, so I better go. 

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

Link up below! 

1. Why did we wait so long to see Pitch Perfect? It was a hundred times better than I thought it was going to be. No, I will not be downloading "Cups," though.

2. Last year I did a really great Year in Review through Mixbook, but am sadly opting out this year. Most of our year was baby related/stressful/busy, so I'm just going to focus on his baby book. This year I'm already starting to file stuff away, though.

3. I'm back to reading I Am Radar by Reif Larsen after a hiatus for the holidays (and to finish up some reviews). I really, really hate leaving a book and coming back to it. I feel a total sense of disconnect and am angry at myself for putting it on hold to begin with, since it's a good book. Oh well. We shall overcome.

4. I want to start a dessert club- like a book club, but instead one person bakes something each week (or every other week or whatever) and shares with everyone else. Basically, it's an excuse to bake. And to eat sweets. This, of course, won't happen since I lack the motivation to make it so.

5. This cracks me up:

[source]

So what do you do? Stare at each other in silence?

6. For the love of all that is good and sacred in this world, please stop copying and pasting useless Facebook "you may not use my stuff" so-called "legal" notices in your status. Remember that itty-bitty terms of service box you checked? You agreed to everything. Your stupid status update (the same place where you passive aggressively complain about your husband and post idiotic memes about gun ownership) is not going to supercede jack crap.

7. So my cousin invited me to join a FitBit challenge that took place yesterday- it was between maybe six or eight people and it was simply to see who could get the most amount of steps in a day. Fun fact: I'm a closet competitor. I was ahead of everyone all day and then my cousin pulled a head by a few thousand steps at like 8:30. What did I do? I turned off my bluetooth so she couldn't see my update and got on the treadmill for forty minutes so I could win. And I did. Over 17,000 steps. Wham-bam thank you ma'am.

8. My classroom counter is covered in Gregors, once again. I'm sure Franz Kafka would be super proud to see his character turned into a neon-colored insect made from clay.

9. I want to write a children's book that explains to kids why their parents won't take them to zoos (my husband and I have ethical concerns about places that keep animals in captivity with the purpose of entertaining humans for profit; our only grey area is the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, since they have more room, but I digress). All I need is an illustrator...

[effing nosy-ass humans; source]

10. I'm working on a really labor-intensive book-recommendation bulletin board for work. If I continue at the pace I'm working at it might be done before the end of the school year. 

Up Coming

It's Saturday. It's not even 7 am (edited to add: our internet is being a lazy bastard, so who knows when this will really get posted). It's a perfect gloomy, stay-in-bed and doze kind of weather. Alas, I have a five-month-old who awoke at his regular wake up time, 5:45. He then waved his metaphorical chubby middle finger in the air and conked back out after he had a full belly and I was completely awake. He's too little to call a douchebag, right?

Nonetheless, I'm up, thinking about some upcoming things that I'd like to work on. I'm sure this morning's inability to "nap" will bite me in the ass in a few hours, but what can you do?

First of all, I'd like to start using this book for personal writing, of which I'd like to post on here, occasionally:

I use it in my classroom every once in awhile, and am always a little jealous of the kids while I'm grading papers or doing something boring like that. I think it would be a fun way sharpen the writing chops and to provide a different sort of content than I usually do.

Speaking of writing (yes, I know this is a segue I use often, but it's just so... easy), I need to go back through and read all of the New York Times' "Bookends" column, which I recently discovered. Each week they have two writers debate a topic like "does where you live make a difference in how and what you write?" or "the demands of book promotion: frivolous or necessary?" They're incredibly fascinating, and I think I could do something here, and at work, with them.

I've started the bookish project of creating Sawyer's baby book, an undertaking I've been both excitedly anticipating and slightly dreading. They yearbook adviser in me is of course going to go all out on this, naturally. I'm using Mixbook, which gives you the most amount of control, while still being user friendly. My goal right now is to do one spread a day until I catch up- I'm anticipating this book to be really long, and really expensive. I'm still trying to decide what narrative perspective to use- I posed the question on Facebook the other day and got mixed advice. First person or third?

I'd also like to make this pumpkin:

[link]

or this, for my fireplace, but with fall colors:
 

[source- via Pinterest via some spammy site]

I'm not a crafty person, and I think a lot of homemade decor projects (ala Pinterest) delve into the tacky category quickly (and a lot don't, if we're being fair). I do hate paying a ton of money for things I could possibly make, though, but decorating the house does fall into the "fake it til you  make it" philosophy that I'm currently channeling.

Chances of all this happening: slim to none.

A girl can dream...

Summer Goals/I'm An Old Lady

[this is basically me now]

I'm the type of person that needs goals- I need a plan, a direction, a purpose in order to feel fulfilled. This summer is different than any other with the baby and I don't want to look back on it and feel like I accomplished nothing. I know that infant-wrangling is an accomplishment in and of itself, but there's more to me than just that. Yes, I know, mother-of-the-year! So, this summer I'd like to do a few things:

1. Read ten books. This really won't be that hard if I start better utilizing the time I spend feeding Sawyer.

2. Be able to do run/walk intervals for four miles.

3. Walk (or swim) the dogs four days a week. This used to be six or seven, but I'm being realistic. I need my husband to go with us or watch the baby, which doesn't always work with what he has planned. I'm thinking I could take one dog at a time using the stroller or Ergo, so I need to start trying those options out (two thirty-minute dog walks a day would mean an extra hour of walking for me!).

4. Lose five of the ten pounds of baby weight I have left. This is purely a vanity-driven desire, but I'm being honest. I need my work clothes to fit when I return in August.

5. Get out and do something either social or different than the norm every week, whether it's meeting a friend for lunch or taking the baby to the park or beach to walk. I have to have things to look forward to.

6. Finish some sort of sewing project.

7. Put in the equivalent to thirty minutes a day on the writing project I was working on before and stopped because... life.

8. Blog an average of three times a week.

9. Work with Sawyer to get on some sort of schedule that will coincide with what the daycare provider will want him to be on.

10. Catch up on my Mixbook for this year.

Holy shit I sound so fucking old. And boring. Remember when I used to go skydiving and book readings and find new resaurants? 

My 2013 Photo Book

Growing up one of my favorite things to do was look at our family photo albums that may mom did a decent job of keeping up-to-date. Starting when I was fifteen or sixteen I started to keep my own, back in the day where you actually had to take film in and get it developed. I continued this habit up until the end of last year- religiously having my photos printed from my digital camera and filling them in albums along with written blurbs. I loved having a record of what I did, but it had gotten to the point where it was a bit of a pain in the ass. 

[While I do love white space, there are some busier pages]

This year I decided to go an alternate route and use Mixbook, my preferred photo book company of choice. I've used Kodak, Shutterfly, and Snapfish before, but I really prefer the freedom that Mixbook provides in terms of changing fonts, colors, backgrounds, layouts (or not even using one of theirs), and sizes (it's incredibly similar to the yearbook company's program at school). They're product is high quality and their prices competitive (and they always have coupon codes). Their customer service is great, they deliver on time, and the program is user-friendly. Unfortunately, they do not pay me to say this.

[a bit more simple]

I started the project several months ago, with the hope that I would catch up and then stay on track every month. It didn't happen. Instead, I got through April and then stopped. So this month while on Christmas break I've spent hours downloading pictures off my phone and computer onto the site and creating pages for months May-December. I'm happy to say that today I finished December and the many necessary edits. 

[I try to let the pictures do the talking, but sometimes you need words!]

While everyone has their own style and technique, here are a few things that worked for me:

- I didn't create rules in terms of how many pages each month could or could not be; some months were slow and only needed three pages, while some were jam-packed with fun and needed eight or ten.

- I tried to include smaller, more ordinary moments in addition to the more obvious events and milestones.

- I utilized my yearbook adviser training and aimed for consistency and plenty of white space. The consistency came in terms of things like font type and size, a loose font color scheme for each month, and the style of the picture formatting. White space is personal preference- I like pages to be clean and crisp, rather than heavy with digital stickers and colored backgrounds (this is one of my issues with scrapbooking, besides the time and money- so many spreads are so busy). 

- I put cost aside, which is very difficult for me. I knew that this was not going to be cheap; I wanted a 12x12 book, which start at $49 for 20 pages. After all was said and done, my book ended up being 73 pages, with each additional page after 20 costing $1.25. Luckily they were running a 40% off coupon when I submitted, so my $116 dollar book was reduced to $69 (plus shipping and tax). On the bright side, I didn't have to spend any money printing photos or buying albums this year, so things come close to evening out in the end.

- I used their templates (and changed them as needed) and created my own as well. 

- I wrote some copy, but tried not to go overboard (I do love me some words, though).

- I accept the fact that when it arrives there are going to be a few errors. I probably could have asked my editor/writer husband to go over it, but was too impatient to order it. 

So now, since I of course chose the cheapest shipping, have to wait a few weeks to see the finished outcome. I'm so excited and hope that this ends up being great enough to take the place of my old method of photo-keeping. 

Scrapbooker I Am Not

This girl is not a scrapbooker- I do not have the patience to cut out paper, choose stickers, or stencil anything (nor do I have the urge to blow wads of cash at Michael's). I do, however, like having something a little more than just a basic "stick it in the slot" photo album for pictures that are slightly more interesting that the ones featuring my dog. I experimented with different companies, including Kodak and Shutterfly, and was frustrated with my lack of control (story of my life). I wanted to put different backgrounds on different pages, choose my own layouts, and change the fonts. You know, without buying paper for thirty cents a sheet, and printing things out on my computer to glue on.

Right before I went to Italy in 2009, I noticed Facebook posts that someone I went to high school kept writing- apparently her husband ran a company that specialized in photo books. I, of course, cynic that I am, ignored them thinking it was someone pushing the family business. Luckily I checked Mixbook out, discovering that it gave me the flexibility I needed without being expensive (please note, they are not paying me, giving me free products, or even aware that I am writing this). You have complete control over every aspect of the process, including the background patterns, fonts, layouts (templates or free form), pre-made graphics (I think you scrapbookers would call them "stickers"), cover, and page length. The program is extremely easy to use and the finished product is of good quality. Books start at $6.99 for a small paperback, up to $49.99 for a huge coffee table size.

Why the hell is she posting this? I just finished my New York trip book and, face it, it's the closest thing I'll get to publishing a book right now. Plus, it's either this or laundry.

A few screenshots from my Italy Book:


And a few from the New York one I just finished: