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

Publish your own book

Ok, today I got a book in the mail that I had ordered from Blurb. It looks really nice and I think my uncle will like it. It is the autobiography that my aunt wrote this past year before she passed away.

Interesting tidbit that I found out while asking if they wanted me to include anything else in the book - she has over 40 journals! However, this past year she read them and condensed them into this one 100 page book. Wow! Like Abraham Lincoln said, it takes more time to write a shorter letter.

Anyway, since I know that many other friends also order books, I'm hoping that I can share some information and it will trigger others to share some more back to me.

I have no problem "wasting" money on testing a product if it helps me spend my money wisely going forward on the right product.

But, here's what I've learned so far:

• Winkflash - good for photography books, reasonably priced, but don't think they have the professional paper cover jacket. The software is online (unless it has changed and I couldn't find that it has)
• MyPublisher - a little more professional, great for photographs and minimal text. It provides some basic nice templates. Downloadable book creator software. It can be pricey if you don't use the online coupons they provide you every few weeks. Allows you to share a link to your complete book for others to view.
• Blurb - looks a little like MyPublisher as a final product, but cheaper. Works well for text heavy books, but allows for graphics. Allows you to share a link to others to view. But, it doesn't look like they can view the complete book. Also, it allows you to set a price to sell your book and even allow people to order their own style (softcover, hardcover, small, large, etc.)
• Shutterfly - haven't ordered from them yet and would be interested to see what they do.
• Lulu - haven't ordered yet, but definitely will. This site is great if you actually want to publish a book. You can buy the ISBN number and editing services if you so choose AND sell your book right on the site.
• Others that work?

All of these sites allow you to order posters, calendars, cards, etc. I was just focusing on the book publishing services here.

Please share if you have had good luck elsewhere. I will be publishing a few books in the future (ok, mostly journals and photos that are personal) and would really like to get high quality with the most reasonable company.

No offense to scrapbookers, but these are great AND I've actually scanned in an old scrapbook or two and have them in one of these books now. It's great and ...takes about 1/5th the space. Let's not forget the fact that you can order multiple copies too.

I love technology!

To Do Lists - little books

I just purchased my next little to do book. It's the orange ship with light lime green cover.

For the (my) record, I've taken a picture of the books I've used over the last couple of months. I combine both personal and work "to dos" in these and since I'm completely electronic in every other part of life , it's nice having one little book to carry with me at all times. Plus, it's fun to buy the ones that have creative covers.

Now, that I've taken the picture they can be scanned into the computer and....thrown out.

Like I said...I'm keeping it electronic.

At some point I'll dump them all into one of those online publisher type books and get it bound. As far as I'm concerned, it's a supplement to the regular journal and the blogs.

Just a little secret happiness to have a new little books for note taking and to dos.

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.

Just a post

Well, I just decided to post because I'm tired of seeing my own Mary Kay pictures posted every time I go to the page. Ha. However, it is a good way to find out what people thought about the different hair styles. As a result, I'm actually going to cut some of my bangs just a little shorter and swing them to the side just to see if the style actually looks good. Hey, all it took was three blog comments for me to take action. Perhaps I should put other decisions up here that I need help making.

Otherwise, this has just been a week. I've been tired...even though I've actually slept about seven hours a night and I never sleep seven hours a night. I've made the carpool every day and we even got to work at 6 a.m. one day instead of 6:30 a.m. It was a good day, but not sure I can keep that up! Luckily, I enjoy my carpool and the time always seems to go pretty fast. 

Work is ok. The meetings are picking up and it's the end of the fiscal year. So, an unreasonable amount of time is spent creating "charts" and I'm not talking about amazing excel spreadsheet packed with equations that are exported into another workbook page type of charts or anything like that...No, we like to put every possible kind of status into Powerpoint which renders it useful only for "briefings" and not for any practical data sorting, updating, etc. on a day-to-day basis. Yes, we have this urge to be Powerpoint Rangers. Wait, why am I writing about work on this blog? 

As far as friends are concerned, it's been a good week. About four friends have had babies in the last week, or I should say last two weeks. One even had twins. I've got a couple of boxes of diapers in the car to give to them. That is my standard gift now because it's just plain practical! Now, hopefully the unexpected heat this week won't melt the diaper tabs together. I'd better check on that.

Another friend is realizing her life mission is to help people perfect their personal appearance through personal coaching, training and working for Nordstroms. (-: I'm confident she will quickly move up the food chain. I am hoping I gain the confidence she has to move forward on a dream. But, they always say that you will end up making just as much doing what you love, right?

I am awaiting some photo books I created over the weekend from http://www.mypublisher.com  and that would be my little confidence building activity for the last few days.

Ok, well, like I said...this is "just a post" and so I should probably think about going to bed even if it's just a thought. Plus, mission accomplished...the MaryKay photos are now lower down on the page.

Good-night, r

Scrapbooking for Dummies - or for people that just want to keep it simple

I must put a plug for a website I love - http://www.mypublisher.com .

I scanned in my photos from my mission and now have a beautiful book. Two huge bulky photo albums have been scaled down to a sleek, glossy black page, hard cover book. Another photo album was a little more crafty and so I just scanned each page into the computer and put it into a generic white background template so that it was just a recreated version in a book. Nice.

Some of us just don't have the patience to cut pictures, create artwork around them and create more bulk. This method still does take time, but I ordered multiple copies of the books and that's not something that's very easy to do with a regular photo album. And, you get an online link to share it virtually with friends.