Ted Home, Babysitting, Cropping...

This morning, I slept in until 8am! I could get used to this! I wake up and the dishwasher is running, Ben is happily playing downstairs and... where is Mary? I remember not too long ago when I was awakened every morning with Mary climbing all over me. With Ted at home, the landscape is so different! Yesterday, the garage was our focus. It had leaves all over the floor of it, cobwebs on the window, bikes everywhere and stuff in our walkway. The night before we discussed how we'd like to change it...hang the bikes on the wall, move some low shelving that took up valuable space, move the little refrigerator closer to the door, etc., etc. So yesterday, we were ready to work. We kept Mary home from Parent's Day Out because of a nasty cold and low grade fever so I couldn't be as helpful as I had planned, but Ted worked on it most of the day. Today, the garage is fully swept, everything is off the floor and it looks so much better. I feel so much better. Next is the storage room. These are the two places in my house that I put off. The storage room is easy to put off because I don't see it much. I can forget about how much junk is in there and how the space could be better used and organized. We've never had time like this with Ted around. As much as we don't like the fact he is unemployed, we love having him at home!!

Today, Ted is going to run up to his former place of employment, turn in his signed agreement about the terms of his severance, turn in some mileage, and meet some friends for lunch. I'm glad he's getting out. I don't want him to feel like I'm totally strapping him down with house projects! He's waiting to hear when his interview will be for the other position in the company. It should be sometime this week. He had called yesterday and talked to his friend (the hiring manager), and he said that the VP (that layed off Ted) told them to go ahead and bring Ted in for an interview while they were waiting for the job to get officially reposted. He seems to really want Ted back on, which is just really confusing to me. Even if he gets employed at the same job again, we will always have one eye looking out for something else with more of a future.

On to other topics...I can't believe that in one week, I will be watching my neice for the first time as my sister goes back to work! It is very hard for her to deal with this. She really wants to stay at home but they can't afford it right now. It's still their goal. Every Friday I will watch little Leah and I'm curious to see how this goes. I'm anxious to have this time with her and I think it will be different but good to have a little baby for one day a week. I wouldn't want to do it every day, but this should work fine.

On the crop front...almost every night after the little ones go down, I'm getting out my box of pictures that are all organized, and cropping them. I'm cropping for five albums at a time: one for each child and one family album for me. I'm VERY behind. I've done maybe one or two crop weekends since Ben and Mary were born but that's about it. Cropping took a low priority when they came along. I always told myself when I was bothered by this, it'll be there when I'm ready. I'M READY! I'm using my upcoming crop weekend as an excuse to buckle down and get my pictures ready for the weekend. Here's my method: When I order my pictures online, I order one for my album, and I make extra copies for all the ones that I want in each kids albums. I make thumbprint printouts (black and white, because I only need it for reference) of all the pictures with the date printed under each one (with a digital camera, this is easy). When I get my pictures, I divide them up by album with little labled dividers and they are stored in a fabric covered box. In this box, I keep scissors, small circle and oval cutters, a small cutting mat, and a picture trimmer along with the photos themselves. Whenever I want to crop, I grab this box and move it to a table (lately it's been my coffee table in the family room...I like cropping with people around and watching T.V.). I shape all my pictures based on the picture. I cut out any extra space and I make circles and ovals out of anything that's conducive to it. A page looks better with the softness of at least one circle or oval. I don't corner round right now because it takes too much time. While I'm catching up, I'm keeping the corners the way they are. Once my pictures are all cropped, I wait for a crop night or crop weekend to put them on pages. This takes up more space and I think it's a pain to unpack and pack every time, so I like to have bigger blocks of time to do this part. It goes so quickly because my pictures are all ready! I'm not a fancy cropper. I use colored paper for accents and I journal a little with dates and names when necessary. That's it. I rarely use stickers or extra embellishments. I just want to get the page done and I really want the focus to be on the pictures, not the other stuff. On a crop weekend, I can get so much done because of my simplistic approach. My crop weekend is in a week and a half. I'll let you know how much I get done. Mary's album hasn't even been started yet...*cringe*.