52 Weeks...for when 365 Days looks just too tiring.

I have this hope that if I start writing shorter entries here I might actually post more often. Part of my new attitude toward blogging is purely a matter of self-preservation. You see, I recently discovered why my nice, gentle heating pad, set on low to softly warm my disks much like the mother hen ever so carefully incubates her fragile eggs, would randomly turn into a blistering, sweat-producing, skin-gripping red-hot-stove-burner slapped against my already tormented spine.

Apparently due to some kind of bizarre electrical anomaly, if my computer (or cel phone charger, for that matter) is plugged into the same circuit as my heating pad and turned on, I end up with the flames of hell strapped to my back. Therefore, in an effort to avoid completely destroying the lovely Edward Gorey tattoo on my back, I now must work on my computer in (relatively) short bursts throughout the day, relying upon battery power.

This kind of fits with my theme for the year. Theme may not be the right word...maybe mantra? Focus. Or better yet, "One thing at a time." Having a brain doused in OCD, this is one of the hardest things for me to do. I have spent my entire life piggybacking simultaneous thoughts one atop the other in fear that I will let my guard down and somehow cause the Earth to fall out of orbit. I know I get more things done (and done better) when I focus. I know my stress level goes down when I only do one thing at a time, and when my stress level goes down, so does my pain to some extent (and I'll take any reduction I can get.) As a Zen Buddhist, I have spent countless hours (hey, ten minutes-es add up) in practice, training my mind to do this--yet, it rarely lasts because that creeping fear of not having a hook in every pond (forgive me fish, for the un-vegan metaphor ;)). Well, I'm taking this flesh-cooking coinicidence as a sign that I need to try again.

But none of that has anything to do with the title of this post. What I'd like to draw your attention to is a fun little project on one of my fellow Fiskateers' blogs. If you're on pretty much any papercrafting message board, you've probably heard about the crazy blackfridayish lunacy surrounding Becky Higgins' 365 Kit (I must note here, fearing raising my friend Jen K's ire, that this is not Ms. Higgins' idea, just her kit. You can read in the post before this one about my prior attempt at 365ing and it certainly wasn't new then either.) Well, whether you just can't get enough year-round projects, or 365 is just too darn many entries to deal with, take a look at Debby's Blog. Once a week she will be posting a question/page theme so that at the end of the year you have a fun little scrapbook cataloging your thoughts on a variety of subjects. Do other people also do this kind of thing, sure. But Debby's always got fun challenge ideas and she even holds a weekly drawing among the participants for nifty goodies. One more reason to visit her blog on a weekly basis? She also participates in Fiskars Friday, posting a new Fiska-centric project every week if you're into that kind of thing.

So, enough for today. My battery wanes and I need to head over to the rescue account to see who wants to adopt some spiny mice.

Blog Fun Ahoy!

I've been cooped up a lot, surprise surprise, but I'm putting the time to good use by catching up on my favorite blogs.

Holy frijoles, I just found out I won a contest on the Bind-it-All blog! Yeah, I know, you'd think I'd have figured it out before this, but I can be surprisingly ditzy. Sure, I wondered what became of that zombie pic I sent out, but then I figured I'd have heard something in my email box by now if anything exciting came to pass. Apparently it's harder to find my email via this blog than I thought. I'll have to look into some sort of "contact me" dealie for this thing. Don't wait up...I'm still trying to figure out how to add links to my friends' blogs somewhere on the margin of this thing.

Anyway, speaking of links, here I am:

http://binditall.blogspot.com/2008/10/congrats-to-nany-and-rat.html

Fully zombified! I just wish I'd been well enough to keep my plans to join the zombie walk invading downtown Raleigh, but I guess that's what next halloween is for.

Tra-la-la...on to the next blog I'm all worked up about. Meet Becky Higgins (if you don't know her already) and Project 365:

http://www.beckyhiggins.com/blog/2008/12/understanding-concept-of-project-365.html

Now, a couple of summers ago I got the idea to take a picture every day and scrapbook them. This lasted about one week, producing the following photos:

And then I kind of forgot that I was doing it. So when I saw Becky Higgins' 365 Project it made me go, "Oh yeah! Maybe I'll give it a try again." I'm hoping the kit's unforgiving daily spaces each requiring filling (or they'll sit there like a big toothless grimace at the end of the week) will keep me honest and on task. As silly as it sounds, the pics you see here--boring as they may be to people who aren't, well, me--actually are pretty evident of the time they were taken. Usagi (shown with head inside a stock pot) is wearing a funny little necklace I made for her, Revco, and some of their other canine pals around that time. Those cute little beady eyed furballs were flying squirrels my friend Lisa was rehabilitating at the time. And yes, that's my head in a traction unit which I noticed via other pictures, gives me this really creepy over-facelifted look when it's pulling on the skin around my forehead. How would I have otherwise learned this important information? :) In another, Scott is working out at the gym where we used to go before I got so much worse. And therein lies my one fear in doing this. I'm scared it will make my degeneration even more evident than it already is. And it's been bad lately. On the other hand, maybe I'll find that I'm putting too much focus on the bad times. Or maybe I'm missing something important that can make life better, physically or mentally. Or, I could just end up with a neat photographic project, which is really all I want from it anyway.

And one last blog link. A fellow Fiskateer has asked us to feature a link to her site with pics from the new classes she is teaching:

http://www.teridaughteroftheking.blogspot.com/

Yeah, the classes are a leeeeeeeeeeeeeetle far away for those of us in NC to attend, but the card organizer idea struck me as a project that could be cool to mimic using all that left over holiday scrapbooking paper and whatnot in order to make a book to keep all those Xmas cards in. And while you're poking around, check out the store's site. There are more pics on the classes page including the "Love Notes" book (using the Bind-it-All, thus we come full circle) that also offers a neat design that could be repurposed to store those stacks of glittery cards I never have any idea what to do with once we stash our tree away for another year. Maybe if I can ever get caught up on the Raleigh Rodent Rescue emails (I swear people believe that animal rescue workers don't eat, sleep or celebrate holidays. Or at least they believe that we shouldn't), you'll get to see my version here. Maybe. :)