a few delightful things

1) Oh Skype I've been loving you for a few years now because you keep me connected with my kindreds, but this week, you've become a life saver. This is the first time we've been away when Ellie has really be in touch with that "I miss Daddy" feeling, so we've been calling almost every night and Jon's been reading to her (he usually reads to her every night at home). It has been awesome. And with the time change, if we can't talk at night, we've been able to talk before he goes to work. She loves it.

If you aren't on Skype, this is your direct invitation. Because honey the future is here and parts of it (like this) are super awesome.

2) Because I haven't had my laptop with me (just using my iPad + my dad's laptop every other day for about 20 minutes), I'm getting back in touch with my love of pens + paper. I've already mentioned my beloved Smash book I picked up at Target (like this one). I'm also really loving these Sharpie pens in all these happy colors.

Oh and on Instagram and Facebook I received a few questions about Smash books. Here's a link to my posts where I profess my love and share a few ways I use them. Other than the happy colors + quotes throughout, I really love the thick paper + the happy pages that aren't intimidatingly blank. (Green one is my all-time favorite.)

3) I'm reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown and simply, profoundly loving it. I find myself just nodding and underlining and nodding some more. So grateful for this woman's work. She was on Oprah's Soul Sunday this past weekend and will be on again this coming Sunday. You can watch the first episode here. And it is a must. As in this is your homework. For reals. Yes.

4) I keep coming back to this quote. I think it is going to be my theme this Spring. Yes. Yes. Yes.

5) On the surface, this one is not so delightful: I am officially two months behind with Project Life. I think I'm going to go with what I did last year when I got behind: Print out the photos and get them in without worrying about what day what happened or grouping things by the exact week. February and March might just be two months of photos in whatever configuration makes sense based on the photos I decide to use. Going to get one big batch of iphone photos printed and then add in a few from the big camera. And planning to just start anew with the first week of April, which will be Jon's spring break and feels like good timing. (Reading this over on Ali's blog was very helpful too.) The delightful part is where I'm just going with the flow. Not beating myself up. Not worrying about perfection. Just committing to printing out some photos and putting in a few notes here and there.