Motivational Monday: It's All About Strength

Today marks the beginning of the third challenge over at the Path of Positivity and the theme this month is Strength.  I believe that it is aptly timed because right now I am sorely in need of some.  

Those of you who know me on a more personal level know all the different endeavours that I have recently taken on.  This of course has drastically increased my workload.  I was doing a lot before but now I feel like it has exploded exponentially.  I keep telling myself, 'self as soon we get 'x' done, things will be better'; however, as soon as 'x' is done, 'y' and 'z' have already popped up in its place.  

Now I'm not telling this to you guys to complain; far from it.  I have not felt this fulfilled in over twelve years.  That is a long time to go without feeling a sense of purpose.  I just want you all to be aware that some weeks,  my 'regular' stuff may slide a bit.  For example, as hard as I tried there was no way I could have fit in the Sunday Spotlight yesterday.  I had the regular correspondence and daily stuff which took me about two hours, then moved on to take care of some Path business, had to complete two posts scheduled to come out early this morning, move on to take a picture of, watermark and upload a card for the Digi Darla Newsletter that needed to be in for Sunday afternoon, next work on creating the latest quote for the Path of Positivity challenge, get the post ready to announce the start of challenge #3, then create a project to highlight one of our wonderful guest sponsor's images. <Sigh> I started at 2:00 in the afternoon, took a couple hours off from 8:00 to 10:00, then worked again until 3:00 in the morning.  Now while I typically work an average of 10 to 12 hours each day between the blog and card making there has been so much extra that I have been doing since the beginning of April that I'm just at a point where I can't seem to fit everything I want to, in.

Now my many friends keep telling me I need to let something go.  However, what to drop is the question I continuously battle.  My design team obligations are extremely important to me.  I've grown so close to many of the people I work for and alongside, that I couldn't imagine telling them I'm no longer available; nor do I want to.  While I could let go of the two progressive challenges, I don't want to lose the opportunity to pick of the fabulous digis I get every month.  Never mind the fact that the one is forcing me to get a start on my Christmas cards nice and early so that I won't be in such a panic and have to resort to store bought for the majority of my send outs again this year.  I've just created the Path of Positivity so I'm obviously not about to let that drop.  Now while this new aspect to what I do has currently added about two hours plus a day to my activities, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.  Once I have managed to finish creating the winner and top seven badges along with the DT badges, get all the behind the scenes documentation and forum set up for the DT and bring them all on, things should get a bit better as the DT can at least take over the majority of the commenting on entries and be there to create inspirational projects for each challenge.  Although, now that I've created themes and it is no longer anything goes, it is just possible that will greatly reduce the number of people entering.  We'll have to see how it all plays out.  So what does that leave?  Well, the only thing left to give up is the regular features of my blog like the Saturday Showcase, Sunday Spotlight, Motivational Mondays, Wonderful Wednesdays and Congratulatory Considerations; or, to reduce the amount of information that I put into my card posts.  However, these are the kinds of things that make this blog unique and I can't imagine completely letting go of any one of them for the long term.

This does leave me in a bit of a quandary but something does have to change.  My house and husband are being neglected, I have absolutely no time to leave the house and do any shopping or visiting.  The only thing I am left with is the ability to hope and pray for STRENGTH.  Strength that I will still be able to do it all but just find a more efficient system.to work within.  Strength that my body which is feeling the wear and tear of what I am doing will calm itself so that I don't end up relapsing.  Strength to realize that everything will all work out the way it is supposed to.

Consequently, what does that mean for you my readers?  Well, you might notice at times that some weeks there won't be a Spotlight like yesterday, or that maybe Motivational Monday may only appear twice in the month instead of the four times I'd prefer.  It might mean that Wonderful Wednesdays are doubled up like they were last month or it could mean that when things are super crazy I won't be able to be as diligent with all the details I'd normally provide related to card making.  It might mean taking more weekends off throughout the year to spend a bit of extra time with my hubby.  The one thing you will have already noticed is that the Saturday Showcase has been dwindled done to putting one person under the lights instead of the original three I had started off with.  It was just getting too difficult to find search out and find three different participants for each week.  I first had to research and decide who to ask then had to put out a formal request for participation and hope that a) the letter wouldn't end up in a spam folder; or, b) that they'd be able to respond in time to be able to include them.  Then there were the seven to ten hours each week just putting the post together.  It just became overwhelming with everything else going on so I had to drop it to showcasing just one person but increasing the number of cards or images for said individual.  I hope that all of you are okay with these changes.  I know that many of you have come on board as a follower as a result of this unique feature and I hope that I won't lose you as a result of having to switch things up a bit. 

I don't want to disappoint you guys and just as important I don't want to disappoint myself but if I am going to survive, I need the strength to know that things need to change one way or another.  I can only hope that you will all continue to walk beside me as they do.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is appropriate or maybe serendipitous that the theme for the current PoP challenge happens to be strength.  Maybe subconsciously, when I created the themes for all the upcoming challenges I knew that this was exactly the attribute that I needed to focus on this month.  It has certainly become my current mantra this past weekend. 

I created a card to reflect the concept of strength showcasing our guest sponsor for the month, the wonderful Scribbles Designs created by the ever talented Sandy Sommerfeld.

Here are the card and details, I hope I haven't forgotten anything...

General Information:

•  Given that I only had a few hours in order to get this card done and it normally takes me at least two nights, I wanted to keep it rather CAS.  Of course, fate would have it that I'd struggle and struggle because I ended up cutting my card base just a bit too small and couldn't fit anything together the way I originally had intended.  In the long run I hope it turned out okay.

FRONT

Digital Image:

• Penquin: I used the fabulous image called Valentine Brrr-loon which you can find in the Scribbles Design Store HERE or by clicking on the watermark below.

• Coloured mostly using Copic markers.  Balloon and bowtie:  B21, B24, B29.  Brrr:  colourless blender, N0, C1, C3, C5, C7, 100 (body); Y17, YR04, YR07 (beak and feet).  Ground and sky:  watercolour pencils.

Digital Sentiment:

• One I created.

Embellishments:

• Flowers are from Dollarama.
• Yellow Offray brand ribbon is from Michael's.

 INSIDE

Digital Sentiment:

• A freebie I picked up back in January over at Create With TLC.  Unfortunately I was unable to find it in the store but Paulette has so many great ones you won't want to miss out.  Click HERE to go to her blog and HERE to go to the store.

 OVERALL 

Paper Products:

• Card base: Michael's Recollection's Cardstock, white.
• Designer Papers:  Blue on blue heart paper (front & inside)--A digital paper I picked up from Décosse's Dynamite Doodles.  While this one was created for a special mailout she currently has well over 100 others to choose from.  You should check her stuff out, it really isn't too bad.  Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!  Sorry, I just couldn't help myself!  YAY for the first time ever, I finally used one of my own papers.  I've decided I need to create a specific folder for my own creations the same way I do for everyone else so that I can easily see what I've created instead of having to flip through the various folders all over the place according to which program was used to create them.  Given I'm now up over a hundred images, this could take me awhile.
• Shadow (front & inside): --Michael's open stock scrapbook paper.  

Challenges I hope to enter include:

• 613 Avenue Create -- Anything Goes/Optional Twist Twist
• Word Art Wednesday -- Anything Goes 
• Crafter's Digital Art Centre -- Anything Goes

Some more challenges may be added to this list later this week and/or month.


I hope that you will consider entering this month's Path of Positivity challenge and show me what strength means to you whether through words or images.  To help you get started I've created a motivational quote for you which you can find over on the challenge blog by going HERE.   Also, voting is currently underway for challenge #2.  There are some wonderful entries this month and I hope you have the opportunity to go and vote on your favourite.  You can check out all the fabulous entries by clicking HERE.

 Well my friends, thank you so much for sticking through and finishing this rather long post of mine today.  Just before I go, a quick thanks to all of you who continue to support me and offer your friendship.  I treasure every single one of you.

Until next time,