Day 2 - Letting Go

 So, it was the 2nd day of the fat camp, de-junk mania, and removing excess baggage!

Today wasn't gym day, and so I didn't go. But, got an full eight hours of sleep for once!


This was the day to scan some of the notebooks I keep my daily to dos, notes, and everything else in each day. I love these notebooks.

I've written about them before, but now ...it is time to discard them. Letting go is hard to do.

After scanning one or two of them, I realized that I didn't need EVERY single detail of my day. So, finally resorted to scanning about 1/2 of each of them to capture the essence of my daily life, but not so much that I go overboard in documenting every moment.

The great thing is this - once I digitize them, I'll reverse engineer them all into photo books (MyPublisher and Blurb) and throw away the originals. The photo books are great and actually take up a lot less space.

It is a little hard to let go of these still, but it is good to free up space for better things, right?

Today I didn't go swimming. It was supposed to be over 100 and one hour outside yesterday seemed to be like eight hours worth! My skin needed a break. I think it actually stayed in the lower 90s which has been typical the last couple of months. I have to force myself to stay indoors!

I did the workout on the beginners pilates DVD and it worked great...except I swear the women on the DVD were smaller than life. They fit on their mats and I was hanging all over mine!

My husband and I went on a walk under the moon and the stairs since I tried to stay in working projects all day. Nice little moments and I no longer take "ro-tic" walks since I have a man and the "man" can be added back into the word "romantic."

Weight = One pound less!

Ready for Day 3.

This is what is now scanned. I can't throw them away until I order the photo books...just for good measure

Secret Happiness - photo book

Yea! Today one of my photo books came in the mail. I created another one through http://www.mypublisher.com and as usual...I'm happy with the product.

This was the smaller version which I think is about 8 inches X 6 inches and softcover. Typically I get the hard cover versions and they are beautiful coffee table book quality.

I will be trying out a few other sites on my next projects and will determine what the best option is for me. I want to try out http://www.smilebooks.com as well because you can do full page views (like My Publisher), but you can also overlap photos on a full page photo. I haven't found a template in My Publisher that does that, but perhaps it will come out in another version.

These companies are also great for making wedding albums. Some places charge you a few thousand to make wedding albums, but you could really make your own for a couple hundred on these sites with similiar quality.

Anyway, it's always great to see anything of your own in a professional binding.

I'm going to use one of the publishers that allows for more print and fewer photos soon when I finish re-typing old journals.



I just put my hand on the book to prove that these weren't just photographs, but rather a real book.

Memory Lane - shirtless brothers?

Warning! Shirtless brothers.


A few years ago I scanned about 50 family photo albums and about 20 slide trays into the computer. All of those pictures were fairly normal. They covered the 1800s through until about they year 2000. These were the growing up years of the four girls (oldest) and the younger years of my four brothers. It was also before digital cameras.

Now, I've secured a whole slew of pictures from my parent's computers that were taken over the last 9-10 years. I've been uploading them to Picasa so we can share all our photographs.

Interesting stuff. Lots of pictures of trips, of relatives, of flowers, of house remodeling and all of my brothers taking turns posing for the camera. Yes, that's right. We always think women are spending all the time in front of the mirror, but I'm fairly sure that I have evidence that this is not so. There are hundreds of pictures of boys flexing their muscles, boys posing in the mirror sucking in their cheeks to make their cheekbones look more defined and hundreds of pictures of partial haircuts and beard growth/beard shavings. To me they are basically all one in the same. We might as well save 5-6 of the pictures and that covers them all. But, alas, each has significant meaning that only people who know will know.

Don't believe me? Proof below:









Like I said - hundreds of these throughout all of the digital folders.

I mean, how else would we know that Brett used TWO shavers to get his head ready for a swim meet?

Very important historical documentation.

Rugby Championships - 2008

BYU played an awesome game on Friday night. It looked good most of the time. So, they beat Colorado. But, Saturday they got intimidated or something and lost to Cal-Berkley in the final championship game. So, they are 2nd place for the third year in a row. My brother brought his little son and he proved to be quite the cheerleader yelling "go, go, go" or "uuuurrrrggggh" really loud at appropriate, and inappropriate, times. It kept the audience on our end of the stadium entertained.

I took some pictures and put them in my Flickr account for the viewing pleasure of those that want to know. Feel free to add comments as well. I need help identifying some people in the pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11632617@N02/sets/72157604904552247

(Picture: Alma Chris, Little Alma, Brett, Rebecca)

Merry late Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's January 4th and I'm barely writing my yearly Christmas letter. It seems that it comes faster every year! But, here it goes...

2007 started out fairly stressful. Work stressed me to the point of my first gray hairs. As a result, I decided to make work a lower priority even though I still go everyday to manage expectations, people and projects. Responsibility isn't all that it is cracked up to be, but we all have to experience the "greener pastures" for at least 5-6 stressful years, aye?

This year I didn't take many trips. Those I did take involved seeing family members. My youngest brother graduated from high school. There's almost an 18 year gap between us! That means that 2009 brings my 20 year high school reunion. Gasp. I'm finally experiencing those weird feelings of being old. However, my first haircoloring erased some of those strange feelings. ..temporarily.


We've had a few family gatherings, but none with everyone. A few of us met up in San Franscisco in the spring to cheer on the BYU Rugby team in a national championship game. BYU came in 2nd place again. All of my brothers (and Mom and some cousins) were there and all participated either as alumni athletes (cheering) or in the game (Craig).



Craig made it to the All American team again and played a great game at West Point in New York. Mr. Adam Brett Clark is making his debut on the team this year and will be the 4th, and last, brother to play on the team. His high school team won the state championship and so hopefully that carries over in Utah. Go BYU Rugby!

The largest event of my year was actually a project that took a few hundred hours out of my life. I converted all of the old family videos onto DVDs so that they could be viewed and shared by all. I had finished the project and backed up on appropriate hard drives only to have two hard drives fried in the same week. Not good. Luckily, the second time around was faster and more efficient with a new round of technology at my disposal. I also compiled all digital photos and videos to date. Let's just say that 10 copies of everything gets old after a while. Costco photo center became a close friend. I got my time back and they got all of my money. (-:

I'm teaching little five year olds at my church. In the past, kindergarten was my least favorite grade, but these little people grew on me. This year I will be teaching 10 year olds. That is typically the age I enjoy working with, but I'm sure my work will be cut out for me.

Other than that, life moves along. I always appreciate interacting with family, friends church members and some co-workers. Thanks to all that stay in touch. I'm a little slow at times. Does everyone get a couple hundred emails a day like me? By the time I get home from work, I'm completely technology weary.

2008 is shaping up to be a great year! Hopefully there will be wonderful news from me and wonderful news to me from you.

Happy New Year and keep in touch, Rebecca

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