Whoa thereee!

I have been SO busy. I have been living and breathing Wentworth, ah! I have been working 12 hour days for orientation, then classes started, then my financial aid went crazy. I just have been settling one thing after another and have been so overwhelmed.

I'm starting to get a grasp of my new schedule. I've been getting into a good routine too!

This weekend I get to craft. YES! I can't decide what I want to do. Scrapbook, sew, play with mod podge... I could barely make up my mind. I'm just so happy to have time to myself to make things and just unwind and do me.

So for an update.....

• My Co-Op ended, now I'm back in classes! I'm taking 6 classes which is 23 credits. I'm a crazy woman
• This month is me and Benjamin's ONE YEAR!!! yay!!
• I saw my sister and Dan since they've come back from Hawaii
• She showed me how to make wire wrap jewelry
• I've done a lot of thrifting
• Ben and I bought a vacuum cleaner (seriously it sounds lame but I feel like we're officially married now. we bought a vacuum cleaner together!)
• Jack, our old roommate, is officially moved out and Alex, our new roommate, is all moved in!
• I came up with lots and lots of ideas.........

I'm so glad to get back into the blog game. I feel like its my year! I feel like I'm gonna do great in classes, plan a great Alternative Spring Break trip, and make lots of things and even make a few garments I can wear. I get to start Project Life!!!!!!!!!!!! (I was going to start it a couple weeks ago, actually, but all the kits are backed up in stocking and plus, I love the new Heather Bailey designed Olive Edition and will be getting this core kit when it's finally out :)

Ben thinks that the PL thing is silly. He understands the idea but is just like "why.." Honestly.. I love the idea of scrapbooking. I love decorating photos and having them as a keepsake but the typical layout with one or two pictures with inspiring words around them just isn't me. My scrapbook pages are so much more boxy and geometric I guess. I like having a lot of photos on one page with stickers to accent and emphasize.. Not the whole thing to revolve around the stickers and just stuff on and around the pictures. I feel that PL keeps the main idea of scrapbooking there and keeps the simplicity of just a life in photos. I want to just take pictures, print them out, and slide them in their place. For me, I almost see it as a journal with lots and lots of pictures. I'm excited to think of things to fill it week to week. I'm excited for the weeks that just fill themselves. I'm excited to pick one or two things to revisit every week to see its change and progression (like a picture of Ben and I week, or our favorite munchies of the week) I want to capture this journey of Ben and I in our college life with no real obligations and just the beginning of our relationship. This month is a year we've been together and when I look back on the year... we have no freaking pictures or anything! There are a couple.. from Thanksgiving... and then a handful of just pictures of us. Literally like 5. A year together and all I can show for it is 5 pictures?! Not this year! This summer we did a couple awesome things and got great pictures (trips to the farm, our fishing trip on the Cape) but those big trips don't make our relationship fun. The every day does. I'm excited for this and I hope that Ben starts to love it when he sees the pages come together.

Taking advantage of this fresh start :)

a little update

Wow it's been a week since I've posted!

I think that's the longest it's been. I've been super busy and wrapped up in a bunch of things, I just haven't had the time.

Last week at work was busy and went fast. I do most of my blogging during my free time at work so that's mostly why it suffered.

I've also been such a baby about the heat and not much. I did some scrapbooking though! I did a two page spread for my mom's book and did one page for me and Ben's. I also bought this date Smash Stamp from K&Company at Blick this weekend and some Mod Podge gloss from Blick art stores.

I also bought this Canon photo printer on Amazon! I figured it'd be a good investment. It's wireless, I could download an App to sync and print pictures from my iPhone. Ben has a really good camera and we could finally print photos from it. It got good reviews and it was pretty cheap! And I got free shipping on it. I think it's worth it. Plus, if I really want to scrapbook and document and Project Life, a photo printer was necessary.

Ben and I have been going out to eat a lot lately! We went to Fire and Ice with some friends Thursday night.

Hahaha FAIL.

Fire and Ice with Chris, Mike, and Ben

My food before it was cooked

On the grill!

Ben and I went to the Franklin Park Zoo on Saturday

Ben entering the butterfly house!

The butterflies they had

Waiting to be beauuutiful butterflies

Tree kangaroo!

and we spent the day in his hometown yesterday!

Adam and the horses

Feeding the horse!!

Flowers I got from the farm :)

I had a really great weekend. Especially spending so much time outside.

a little (long) Friday update!

I was doing good with my posts and updates until yesterday!

Yesterday I was busy nonstop at work! I was able to fit in my shorts project only cause my boss was giving me a little break since he was on lunch and I was gonna have lunch right after him.

I also spent sometime with an old girlfriend yesterday! That was fun :) Then Ben's parents came in for a late dinner after Ben's night class and we went out to P.F. Chang's where I got this inspiring fortune:

I get the BEST fortunes from there! I am definitely passionate and determined about my vision :)

We got home late and I went straight to bed after. So here is my late update!

My calendar was rearranged! But of course I must rearrange it again. Today I'm gonna leave some days open, so if I miss a day then I don't have to completely change everything, every time. Also to plan to do something every day is a little much, considering I work full time and want a little bit of a life outside my craft room :P

I made two goals!! Make dinner twice a week and Read a Book. I made dinner once this week, so that's halfway done. I made broccoli cheddar soup, rice, and chicken. I prepared them all seperately and then layered the soup, rice, and chicken in a pan and baked it for 25 minutes. It was okkaayyy. The soup was from a packet and the rice was instant so I feel if I actually made it homemade, it would be really good! My standard for cooking dinner twice a week is to make something with meat, chicken, ground beef, ground turkey beef, anything with protein like that. Of course I make dinner for us every night, it's just that sometimes it's a pizza (frozen, ordered, or made), breakfast-for-dinner night, or we just make some mac and cheese. We just eat too much like college kids. We're getting older and the time to start making the food changes and good eating habits is now. And read a book is pretty loose... I just want to finish a book. I used to read sososoo much and always be in the book store picking out books. I need to get back into the reading habit again and will be happy with myself if I just get one book read!

My PostalPix order was shipped yesterday! That means I could do some scrap booking next week, yay! I will also be starting me and Ben's personal scrapbook :)

Which reminds me...  I have a shopping cart ready to be checked out for Project Life on Amazon. Except, I'm still waiting for the core kits to be available! I have my clear packets picked out (1, 2 and 3) and I already know what binder and set I want (I think I'm gonna go with the clementine :) buuuut maybe amber?! probably amber...) I really can't wait until I could check out on that order. Maybe I should order the clear packets just to be safe. We'll see. I really can't wait to start it!! I think I may have to invest in a photo printer for this... hmmmm

All my financial aid is set for the fall. Such a relief!

Since I majorly slacked in picture taking this weekend from Bernadette's visit, the same went for Instagram pictures. I only had a few, and just decided to skip the update this week and put the few pictures of last week's Instagram photos with next week's. Whatever haha.

I have done nothing to change the blog, whatsoever. I've really been meaning to! But, work comes first. Perhaps today! My Fridays are usually easy :)

Alex moves in this weekend which is super exciting. And we talked to our landlord yesterday and she told us she had no problem signing a lease for the next year! YAY!!! Now we don't have to worry about moving out until next summer, andddd I want to ask if we could get a kitten :) Awwww it'll be me and Ben's first run as parents :P

Wellll that's about it for this length update! More posts to come today, I'm sure :)

xx
V

DIY Flower Canvas Project

It's pretty awesome that I've been getting consistent page views the past few days. Usually I'd gain one or two when I made a new post... but now I feel like the number is different every time I log onto my dashboard. So exciting!! Thank you, thank you for visiting my space and seeing what I had to say.

I got all of the things I wanted to get done yesterday, and then some! So happy!

Yesterday I took on a little crafting project! Which I adapted from here.

I wanted to use my bigger canvas for some map transferring, so I used my medium sized canvas and made a simpler and smaller pattern.

Before I glued! I cut out some bigger sized petals and smaller sized petals out of some scrapbooking paper. I decided on a design and then put it on another piece of paper the exact way and started gluing!

And it's finished! Doesn't look too much different, ahaha. But it's okay. It may be upside down but what's awesome is that it could go any way you want! It'd even work if I held it landscape.

For this project, I used

• Utrecht Gloss Medium (instead of Mod Podge)
• Different kinds of scrapbooking paper
• Scissors
• Utrecht Foam Brush (disposable, use a size proportional to your canvas
• Utrecht Stretched Cotton Canvas (any size you'd like! I bought a few when they were on sale at the store so I had a couple to chose from. I can't remember it's exact size at the moment D: )
• Utrecht acrylic paint

First I painted the background to my canvas using Utrecht acrylic paint. You could use any color that you'd like! I used Ben's old paint, and this was the only color he had, which completely worked for me.  I liked the neutral background and it looked good with my darker scrapbooking paper.

Then I cut out my petals. I used four different papers, but all from the same packet of paper (it was a gift so I don't know where it was purchased or the name of the brand, sorry!) and cut different sized petals. I played with the positioning for awhile.

After I got everything where I wanted it to be, I took a piece of paper and placed my pieces one by one to the other paper so I could easily glue them on place on the canvas. I also took a picture of how everything was positioned (obviously) so if something got messed up, I still had my plan in handy.

Then I glued! I used the gloss medium like glue. It also works as a sealer. I placed all my petals in their spots and waited a few minutes for them to settle. After, I painted a layer of the gloss over the entire canvas to seal it in place. Then I let it dry!

That's it!

I can't wait to decorate my room with my own decor :p

Monday Update!

Okay so maybe I should have considered how busy I'd be with my Mom's visit when I was making my schedule. I guess I should of just had planned to start it on an even day, like August 1st instead of... June 25th? Guess I was just anxious.

I got a few of my things done here and there. But mostly I was just so happy to be with my mom and the blog kind of went to the back of my mind.

But I had an amazing weekend.

We got some great food, went thrifting, shopping, flea markets, watched the Olympics, and just bonded and talked. I actually cried saying goodbye to Bernadette at the airport. And usually it's me yelling at her to stop crying and she's sobbing. Yesterday was the opposite. I guess that I've just grown up so much in the past couple of months that I just missed having my mom take care of me. Now instead of me telling her about stupid girl dramas, I'm talking about the bills and grocery shopping and cleaning and my work schedule and this and that. Instead of arguing about stupid things, we both fought over washing the dishes.

I didn't even take pictures! The weather wasn't the greatest so I wasn't too motivated to do that. But, like I said, I was just so into the moment and hanging with my mom.

I showed her the scrapbook I was making for her. She couldn't stop looking at the three pages I made and told her that made her night and she couldn't wait for me to finish it. She's going to mail up some baby pictures she loves, too. She wants a little of everything in her scrapbook and I think that's an awesome idea.

My mom was also so impressed and interested in my little craft life! She was asking me questions and really into it when I showed her some of my favorite blogs. She actually asked me to email her the links!! It was so great to have her behind me with all of this. Usually she's like "oh you won't do that" and now she's like "oh can you make me something like that?!" and I love it! I even showed her Project Life and she thought the idea was really cool. She doesn't think I'll be able to keep up week to week but also agrees it's pretty simple to document each week so she has some faith in me. I can't wait till the new products are available to buy! Ah!

My boss is so good to me. He let me have Monday off so I could spend the day with my mom. He even made sure I got a pay for it :) So thankful how lucky I've been. Except now my week is a day behind. My Tuesday feels like Monday. But that's okay, I can't complain :)

SO! For the UpDaTe!
Today, before I go home from work, I plan to....

• Rearrange the Calendar
• Create 2 goals for the month
• PostalPix order
• Finalize Financial Aid things for the Fall 2012 semester
• Insta update
• Work on some formatting of the blog

 For after work I plan to...

• Catch up on some at home projects 
• Work out "What I Wore" for the first post on Friday
• Clean
• BE PRODUCTIVE!

I can do this!
I know I've been slacking and not doing everything I've wanted, but it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing. I've just been so busy with things I just need to take care of first. That's life. I know when classes start I'll have way more free time to do all the things I want.

As for home life, there's good news!!! Alex is moving in! So I'm so glad I sacrificed one of my days last week to spend the day with him and Ben and talk to him about moving in. I love Jack but I'm over living with him... I'm excited that the house is about to change up a little bit. Yay!

A little organization....

Honestly, I'm a little all over the place. I have so much I want to do that I'm just being completely sporadic. So time to change!

I decided that I work the best with calendars. I like physically seeing the month ahead of me and seeing my tasks written throughout. So I made a calendar.

I made one for July 25th - August 25th.

My process:

1. What do I want to get completed this month? I made a list of things I want to do, projects I have to work on, TV show schedules I want to watch, etc... I made note of everything.

2. What types of tasks do I want on my calendar? Then I decided what my calendar would show. I decided on everything! I thought if I had separate calendars for different things, I would probably favor one schedule or just completely forget about one. I decided I wanted everything together on the same page.

3. How should I format my calendar? Hand make it? Microsoft Excel? Find a website that helps you organize things? Microsoft Project? Buy a daily planner? Get a desk calendar? Buy a graphic wall calendar? So many options! I wanted mine to be tangible, as well as cleanly edited or revised. The best option for me was Microsoft Excel. You could easily move around ideas, change format, change anything! and it doesn't have to be permanent and you can't ever mess it up. You could always resave and reprint. After I decided on making it on Excel, I decided to color code my tasks. I would just simply write, or type, the task I had planned in the appropriate box, with it's assigned color.

• TV Show
• Craft
• Sewing
• Scrapbook
• Blog Posts
• House/General

Then, specific dates like birthdays and visits were written on the top of the date box in black ink but italicized. For the TV shows, they're written in a smaller font at the bottom of the box as a little reminder.

4. How should I assign my tasks? This was the hard part for me. I was thinking about how my weeks usually go, how much free time I have on what days, what days I'm most productive, things like that. I didn't just want to write things to do on the calendar. I wanted to assign them so they'd be realistic for me to get done. First I thought about which projects I wanted to get done the most, what days they'd best fit in, how long they'd take, how many breaks I will or won't take... it depends! When I sew, I take a lot of breaks. My room doesn't have an AC so when I get too hot or frustrated (which happens a lot) I take a couple minutes of just sitting in Ben's room collecting myself in the cold. Or I'll sit outside for a smoke break and try to clear my head. But when I scrapbook, my head is just stuck looking down, positioning and repositioning and gluing and cutting. I work different depending on what it is. I made sure I thought about this when I picked the days of what to work on. I really feel that I did good on this. I spent a good amount of time thinking about it.


5. Well, did it work?! Too early to tell! Today is the first day of my self-assigned project schedule. Today I have Clean kitchen, Scrapbook Flower Canvas, and Currently Post on my to-do list. Then in little font on the bottom, is 10 PM - Virgin Diaries. I'll have one down by the end 3PM today, the Currently blog post!


6. What are other ways to stay on top of things? The calendar isn't enough for me. I really am trying to push myself into a more productive habit. I decided to put the Reminders App on the iPhone to use. I always use this App when I'm taking classes, to keep track of homework and classwork. I decided to put it to use for my projects! In the morning I'm going to put in my daily tasks and set reminders for the timeblock I want to work on them. I'll probably try and clean the kitchen within a half hour of being home from work, shower, eat, and get ready to start the scrapbook flower canvas project shortly after. With, of course, my Reminders going off every fifteen minutes. I need to be more disciplined and less lazy! On with the crafting! I also am going to start embracing post it notes a lot more. At work, I run through post-its. I want to get some colored ones to hang reminders in my room and on my laptop to have little motivators. My other secret weapon is Ben. Whenever I try to break a habit, I always have Ben as my backbone. I'll tell him "don't let me have ____ if I do _____" or "make me _____ if I don't _____" and Ben usually sticks to it. Permission to annoy me and keep me from something I want? Ben is usually up for it.

7. Anything else I want to add? The best thing about doing it on Excel, is that I could open up the document and move around everything and change my entire month around. Or I could add to my already packed schedule or delete it all! Last night I thought a lot about my calendar. How if I had tasks to do today how long would they take and when would I have fit them in, but also, what else should I add? Last night I made myself soup for dinner and made some apple crisp for dessert. Ben got home from class and ordered Chinese. Then I thought, I should put goals on my calendar. First one being, COOK dinner (with real food) at least twice a week. Twice a week sounds like a low expectation, but I'd be setting myself up for a downfall if I try anything more. I consider cooking dinner as making a meal with meat and preparing everything myself. Usually it's store bought pizza dough and we make pizza or grilled cheese or frozen things. Ah! We're getting older and it'll be sooner than later that our bodies change and we can't eat the crap like we do now. I also considered adding future blog features, and other little things to my calendar.

I hope this could help some other overwhelmed future crafter. Haha. I know it helped me spelling out what I expected from myself and typing it and rereading it here. This blog is helping me so much. Just being able to keep a record of what I've been doing, it just helps me stay motivated and just want to fill this blogs' archive with awesome content and watch myself grow as a woman, adult, and a crafty lady.

Yay! :)

Scrapbooking Adventure 1

Last night I scrapbooked!!!

I started the scrapbook I'm making for my Mom. I ended up making 5 pages last night! And I actually used up all the photos I ordered from PostalPix that were for my Mom's scrapbook. So, I couldn't even continue if I wanted :)

I have pictures on my phone, but they don't do justice. I'll leave them up for now, and I'll replace them with better quality photos later this weekend.

Page 1 : Family
I really like how this page came out! I used PostalPix's 4x4 prints for these. I cut the tops off of my Mom's photo (left), the sides on my Sister's (right), and two corners off of my photo (bottom) I used some scrap fabric I had to help decorate. It's a pink floral :) I have our names written by our photos Bernadette is Mom, Samantha is sister, and I'm Victoria. I also have the date and occasion of the photo (Bernadette just learned how to use the gas pump in Massachusetts, her and my sister were moving me out of school and we're from Jersey and Jersey girls don't pump gas!! and the two other photo's are from Sam's 18th Birthday dinner at Outback) The stickers are also significant, too. We all have swallow tattoos because of their traditional loyalty and love meaning, so there are two swallows next to family. Sam and I also have matching rose tattoos, so I have the rose in the corner, and my mom loves stars and has a few little tattoos of those so I have stars on the page as well.

Page 2 and 3 : Gigi
So, as I'm sure many of you can relate, our dog was our best friend. Gigi was my Mom's companion. After Sam and I left for college, my mom was all by herself and Gigi was really her best friend. It was heartbreaking when my mom had to put her down, Sam and I couldn't even be with her, and I told my mom I was gonna make her a scrapbook, and she made me promise I'd put a Gigi page in. In the corner, it says "and we can't forget.. the baby jesus!" (this has NO religious affiliation, whatsoever. One time my mom was going to call Gigi, Baby Gigi, but she somehow said Jesus instead. I guess the whole juh sound threw her off. She just said "Oh my... I can't believe I just called our dog Baby Jesus." It was one of the funniest things ever. Either way, it's always been an inside joke and somehow became one of the many nicknames we had for Gigi) Then on the opposite page, it has her date of birth and date of rest. These are some of the best pictures I had on of her on my iPhone. She was a cockapoo and was 12 years old. Love you, Gigi! Miss you always <3

Page 4 and 5 : Ortley Beach Vacation Summer 2011
Us three LOVE the beach... and growing up in Jersey, we were spoiled with the Jersey Shore. Say what you will, but it's beautiful. Go anywhere but Seaside Heights and I promise you won't be let down. Every summer we'd rent a house for the week and just hang out and be beach bums. Friends would always drive down and stay for a night or just meet at the boardwalk and walk down the beach at night. There's nothing better. I really like how this page came out, too. I wish I had more photos of us dts (down the shore!) but this is what had to do. The writing on the top left page says, "Gordon Vacation. Ortley Beach 2011" The stickers on the left page say, (top left of page) "BEACH", then (middle of page) "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much" and then (bottom of page) "Simplify". The stickers on the right page say, (top right) "Life is Good at the Beach" and then (bottom left of page) "R E L A X" each letter a different font. This is the first year we didn't take this vacation. I wish I had the time to give up a week and sit on the beach. I sure took that for granted!

And there's my first couple pages of scrapbooking, ever! I'm pretty proud with myself! I really can't complain with the outcome. Though, I am going to order 4x6s instead of 5x7s next time. I love the 5x7, but they're a little hard to work with. I just don't want to end up cutting down most of the photo to fit somewhere when I could of cut way less of a 4x6, and pay less. I'll keep 5x7s for frames for now on. I guess that's my only little thing about this. Oh, and I need to invest in plain colored paper. And some more glue and fancy scissors. Other than that, I am content!! I can't wait to order more pictures and keep at this for my mom. Only 2 weeks until she flies in!

Two things...

So I want to add some features to my blog. I'm really treating this as an online diary, as well as a documentation of my projects and life.

One . I love Instagram. It's probably my favorite iPhone App. I think I'm going to start doing a weekly Instagram post where I share all my uploads from Insta from the week. This will make me take more pictures and therefore have more pictures for me to look back on and scrapbook.

Two . Since I've gone to college, had limited money, and gotten older, my style has changed with me. Or more so, matured with me. I love that I thrift so often now and that I'm sewing my own clothes. Every season I get rid of more and more of my old high school clothes in trade for nicer and more professional clothes. I think I'm going to start doing a what-I-wore feature. I'm proud of my more money conscience wardrobe and my more rounded style. I'm trading short shorts for longer skirts and more decent dresses. I'm only going on 21, but the clothes in my pass are rarely going to make appearances in my future.

I want to do these things!

I really have been sewing in all of my free time. I guess I'm realizing with work and maintaining our home, I can't move as quickly along as I wanted.

But I have a serious goal! I want to send my sister's package out by the end of the week. That means I have to go to the fabric store and get material for her maxi dress and sew it and also get things for dan and ahhh! But her birthday is July 28th, and it takes packages awhile to get from here to there so it's crunch time. Maybe I could sneak out to Chinatown during lunch this week and go to the fabric store. I have to do this! The dress is the last piece to the package.

But now that I have a better grasp on my schedule and a better concept of the time sewing projects take, I could make more realistic goals for myself. It's all about trial and error, my friends. And I'm not gonna lie, whenever I make goals they do just sit in my head until I get around to them. So this week I'm gettin busy!

Progress

I sewed for a couple hours last night!
I also get out of work early today, so I could sew right when I get home! Yay!

I was working on the first lesson on the D.I.Y. Dress Up E-Course by Red Velvet via A Beautiful Mess blog (if you would like to purchase this, hurry! it's only available for sale until July 31st!) which was making bows. My sister LOVES hair bows and I'll be making plenty of those out off all the scrap fabric I have that Laurie gave me. I'll be filling all the empty spaces in her gift box with them :) I want to make them until the stitches look perfect and they look like they came from the store. I'll post pictures of the finished products, but can't post a how-to, sorry! You'll have to purchase the course :)

After I perfect the bow, I'm going to make another wrap skirt for my sister's package. I'll be posting a how-to for that, though! It's a perfect little skirt for the summer or for a beach cover up. Can't wait for that!

As for my goals from the beginning of the week.. they're coming along. It's hard to accomplish these goals day to day because of my work schedule. I feel that once I'm back in classes in the fall I'll be way more on top of things. I also want to start a Project Life scrap book come Fall. I figured I'll make a scrap book or two for the summer and then start a Project Life book when the seasons change. That way I can document my entire Junior year and hopefully continue to my Senior year. Besides sewing, something major I want to do is take more pictures and document more of my life.

..well, me and Benjamin's life. I want to look at something when we're older. See us back when we were young, before we make any big crazy decisions, when things were simple. I also want to have something for our kids to see. With losing my father at a young age, and my mom barely keeping any photos past when my sister and I were 2 and 3, I wish I had more to look at and remember him by. I wish I could see more photos of me growing up. So I want to start the habit now. So I could remember how Benjamin and I grew up together as adults, our firsts, our love.

What I want to do.

Here are a few projects I want to work on...

• Project Life
• Mini Paper Book Album
• Two Scrapbooks : One for my Mom, one for Ben's Dad
• My own summer clothes collection (one skirt down!)
• Hemp bracelets (first one came out ehhhh...)

Is that too ambitious??? I really don't think so. I already started scrap book #1 for Mama Gordon... but so far its proven difficult. It's hard to design a layout for a page in a scrap book with no physical photos.. but it's also hard to choose which photos I want from my phone on the page. I knew there had to be a way to get my pictures from my handy iPhone to actual prints. I found out this great App, PostalPix. You choose what type of print you want (4x4, 5x5, 8x8 squares or the regular 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10) I have 53 5x7s chosen to print as well as 7 other prints and my total is $49.92. Not too bad for 60 photos and almost all 5x7s! Just have to wait for my paycheck to clear then considered it ordered. This is perfect to print out my artsy Instagram photos.

My next purchase will probably be photos for Project Life. It's supposed to be week-by-week but I figure I could skip a couple if they're uneventful or just get the written parts and decorative part out of the way while I order photos for a couple weeks at a time. That way, when they come, I could just slip them in their appropriate spot.

Tomorrow I also plan on ordering a sewing machine and external hard drive. I'm most excited about taking on sewing, so I can't wait to buy and have it shipped to my house. I've also been putting off getting an external hard drive since high school. I've already had my hard drive crap out on me twice and I just had to get my MacBook Pro's hard drive fixed from my school's techies. I was so glad they were able to save it, I'm done chancing it and finally breaking down and buying one. I'll thank myself later. Sigh.