Notes To Self Mini Album

This is a mini album created from Jessica Sprague's Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop Class Assignment #4.

Thursday Thirteen : 13 Things To Do Before School Starts

Here's my list of 13 Things I Still Want to Do Before School Starts In The Fall

#1 World Of Outlaws Sprint Car races
#2 Lombardy Fair
#3 Logos Land
#4 Canada's Wonderland
#5 spend as much time as possible at the lake with mom and the girls
#6 go to as many Saturday night races as possible
#7 visit my sister
#8 go to Carleton Place beach
#9 Perth Fair
#10 visit Lisa & Aunt Joanne
#11 go to value village
#12 take the girls on a boat cruise on the St Lawrence
#13 ..... do anything else fun that we have the opportunity to do

Before and After Thursday

This challenge you take the photo that you posted for Straight Out Of The Camera Saturday (SOOC) and you show that photo edited on Thursday. To edit this photo I used a Photoshop action called Cherry Cream.

Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop : Lesson 4: Assignment 1

Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop : Lesson 3: Assignment 3

Color Combos Galore #201

You can join along with Color Combos Galore Challenge #201 on their blog. The colors for this week's challenge are: Dreamy Creamy Aqua, Whipped Cream, Strawberry Cream, & Hot Fudge.

Here's the layout I made using these colors:

{weekly intention}

According to Andrea from ABC Creativity :
"Hello Monday Morning!
A fresh week. A fresh start. Everything is wide open. Everything is possible.
Before you jump right into your week, take a few minutes to choose where you want to focus your energy this week, to think about what direction you want to be moving in.
Setting a weekly intention is taking some time to pave the way for success, joy and dreams come true to find you throughout the week.
This is not about setting goals or creating to-do lists and working your tail off to achieve them. This is about taking some time to be quiet and still and ask “What do I need this week?” and setting an intention from there to align yourself with that.
Then the real work is to remember your intention and align with it throughout the week."

My intention for this week is to follow through with therapy and class. I need the information and skills I am learning and I need to keep myself open to learning what they have to offer. The skills are helping I just need to stop running away from them.

Mental Health Monday: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Finally, I am getting some help from Mental Health. I have been placed in a program called DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy.) It is aimed at helping people who use life-threatening behaviours as a way of coping with intense and unstable emotions. (eg. self harm, suicidal acts, unsafe sex, substance abuse, spending, binge eating) It is a skills-based training program which offers effective coping techniques, and an emphasis on accepting who you are.

There are 4 main modules taught in group:

1. Core mindfulness Skills - focuses on mindfulness to increase awareness of emotions and behaviours

2. Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills - focuses on learning to communicate needs effectively and dealing with interpersonal conflict

3. Emotion Regulation Skills - understanding emotions and learning how to reduce emotional vulnerability and decrease emotional suffering

4. Distress Tolerance Skills - increase one's ability to tolerate and survive crisis, and accept life as it is in the moment

I have been in DBT for about a month and a half now. I am learning new things each week. The skills are not coming naturally to me but as it is a year long therapy program I am sure a lot of the skills will eventually become second nature.

This past class we were learning about radical acceptance. About accepting what reality is, accepting that everything has a cause, and that life is worth living. Accepting something does not mean it's ok you are just accepting that it has occurred.

I am having a really hard time with this concept. There are some things in my life that I am just not accepting nor do I believe I ever will. How do I accept that I was abused? How do I accept my dad's death? I am hoping as we progress through DBT that I will become better able to accept this concept and practice it in my life. For now though I just have too many questions and want too many answers.

Thankful Mini Album

Beautiful Sunday

Snapshots Mini Album (June Pages)

She is .... Me : Mini Album

This is a mini album I have been working on over the past few weeks from Jessica Sprague's Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop class. I am having fun coming up with a list of the different things that I am. The kids have even gotten on board with this one and tell me every time they come up with a new idea for my list.