Hello!  Been a little busy lately getting those boys off to college and settling into some new routines, activities, patterns with Tim as a couple (again)!  Been fun and exciting and a bit sad all at the same time.

To stay busy, and with the help of my sister Jennifer, I've been working on prayer journals for the ladies in the Bible study group I belong to.  It was a ton of fun to play around with paints, stamps, rub-ons, inks, templates and die-cuts/paper scraps.  I will take the journals to our study tomorrow night so I wanted to capture some images of them before they disappear!

They were made using composition books purchased from Target when they were on super markdown during the back-to-school sales and then I added paints, inks, etc from supplies on hand.  Now I just need a reason to make some more!

Fast forward 12 months... (one way to keep any would-be blog readers up to date with little time commitment required on their part).  Alex has finished his first year of college and is heading back in 8 days for his second year.  Jake has graduated from high school and is heading to college for his freshman year in 12 days.

That's it - we only have two kids.

Which means that in precisely 13 days Tim and I will be the only people living in our house (I'm really becoming averse to that annoying "empty nester" phrase).  Maggie, the chocolate lab will of course still be here.  Love.

So how should one prepare for such a dramatic change in homelife?  Large quantities of wine and Godiva Liquer of course.  But since that can interfere with the day job, the go-to tactic in this situation is overscheduling.

Last month I began taking this power-scrapbooking class with Lain Ehmann.  The class is 'closed' to new students but if you check out Lain's blog, you can get her FREE super-secret guide to fast scrapbooking.  In her class, we're in training for the layout-a-day marathon in September!

In case that's not enough, today was the first day of a five-week course created and taught online by Kelly Rae Roberts that guides creative-types turned would-be entrepreneurs through the process of navigating the path from part-time passion to life-long happiness doing what you love.  I am SO excited....this is going to be great!  And will serve as a nice distraction from the upcoming changes around the house!

And I'm an alumni of Stacy Julian's A Library of Memories which means not only are my pictures uber-organized but I also get to audit this class annually for free - which is a great way to stay on top of the photo/memorabilia/random-stuff-that-I-want-to-scrapbook (which will come in very handy for the pending scrap-a-thon in September).  This class is HIGHLY recommended (should start up again sometime next spring) as is her book, Finding Photo Freedom.  It.will.change how you scrapbook.

So between the two classes (and lots of homework to go with them), working on my items for my first etsy shop (more to come!) and keeping up my pinterest boards, I should think there are enough distractions to keep me from fretting about the reduction in our household head count over the next month or two.

I think it will be lovely to have my husband all to myself for a little while, too. :)  A major distraction right there, right?! wink wink