Krug the Thinker

Whew! Time to catch my breath. I just got back from the Bay area on Monday, and now I’m ready to hit the ground running right into May. April, you were an awesomely fun month. May, I’m pretty sure you’ll be the same.

My main work goal for this month is to finish the book proposal. I don’t know if it’s totally possible, but I’m aiming high. The only reason for the delay is that there are still so many great books about writing book proposals that I want to read, in order to make my proposal as strong as it can possibly be. The best of all possible meta worlds!

It’s getting hot around here, so I want to go swimming! Eric and I may hit the pool in our building, and it’s probably warm enough to fit in a few workouts at the Caltech pool too.

When we were in Berkeley, I bought a bunch of oil painting supplies, and I’m super excited about playing with them. I got a bunch of really helpful books from the library, and I’m learning all kinds of fascinating things about how these paints are made and mixed, and how best to manipulate them on canvas. Fun!

I noticed tonight on my way into the garage that all the star of jasmine on our street bloomed while I was away. This sweet little window of fragrance is one I don’t want to miss. I’m going to try to get out there and enjoy it every day.

At the end of the month, Eric and I are going to my ten-year college reunion! Well, technically, it’s my nine-year reunion, but they group years 9, 10, and 11 together. I haven’t been back since I graduated, and I am so looking forward to seeing old friends and showing Eric the places I lived and worked, the paths I took to my classes, the library where I shelved endless carts of books and sometimes, just sometimes, hid in the stacks and read bound journals while on the clock. Bad librarian!

And, of course, I want to take tons of pictures. I feel like working on project life makes me more aware of my surroundings, and it is always a joy to collect images and ephemera from everywhere we go. I’ll be back with an update in August–updated April goals are here. If any of you do monthly goals, please feel free to join the conversation or leave a link to your page!

I have been wanting to create some of my own cross stitch designs for months now, and I am finally getting to it. My idea is to make lots of bright linear shapes, like so!

I have not gotten too far yet, but I am loving it already and plotting all kinds of color combinations.

I will check back in when it’s finished, and, if anybody is interested, I can put up a pattern (made by my spiffy new MacStitch software!)

Finally, I am getting back to Project Life! I was thinking today, though, about the odd lack of pressure I feel about it. It takes a week for the pictures I order to come in the mail, so I am always, at minimum, a week behind, but it never seems to bother me. When I think about it, I just feel happy about the time I spend working on it and the book I’m creating for our family. We’ll be flipping through these pages for years to come, so it doesn’t matter much to me whether I’m working on February pages in March or in May. The point is that they’re getting done. It’s a good place to be, and I’m so glad that that’s where I’m finding myself. I don’t think this project would be very much fun if it felt like a big obligation. So, hurray for being a day late, but never a dollar short!

On this page I was happy to use some rub-ons and striped tape, which I often forget I have. I like it as the side border.

This adorable elevator needed to be memorialized.

As did Eric’s new computer! How many Apple products can we fit in one room? This is a suggestion for a parlor game at your next soiree.

I don’t often put pictures from style shoots in this album, but I like adding them because doing them has been a fun joint project for us. Those little hearts were made with an old school puncher I found at the Depot in Oakland last week. *Fun*.

Every now and again I like to use darker papers for journaling and splash them up with my silver pen. I am a magpie, after all.

This week took us on a sunny afternoon walk and to the movies for the latest installment in our favorite series. Good times.

An eye shadow palette is totally scrapbook-worthy, yes? YES. I am heading to San Francisco today (yay!) for a week of fun with my parents, so it’ll probably be another little while before I get back to PL. But in the meantime, my album is in a hilarious semi-exploded state, and I love it. Looking forward to having my dad help me design a missing piece to hold it all together. Science!