Making time for myself

i created this blog to remind myself to make time for me. i realized that I'm always doing for my family (late night grocery trips), my boyfriend (love him to death but that's a long drive), or work (which i have to do pay the bills). with all that said, i realized that my only indulgence is basically reading a good book (which is a great way to pass the time). so, with this blog (& a few other great things i will discuss later) i am rededicating myself to a worthy cause:myself :)

before my daughter was born & during her first months of life, i developed a strong interest in digital scrapbooking. i wanted to create my baby's first year book from scratch because the pre-made ones in the store were lacking many features i wanted to include. so i spent a lot of time learning how to use my program (adobe photoshop cs2) & downloading a jillion scrapbooking files & i also made some great friendships on my 2 favorite digiscrapping communities: scrapgirls.com & digitalscrapbooking.com (really..check them out..they are great places). but as they say (who is 'they' anyway??) all good things must come to an end (or so i thought). i had to return to the workforce because while the government provides support for single mothers (it really helped take care of baby j), i wouldnt allow myself to rely on that permanently.

so..back to work for me. i struggled with being home full time w/my little lady to leaving her @home for a large chunk of time per day. also i got my first car which enabled me to visit my boyfriend more often who lives 1 1/2 hours away from me. after months of this, i was exhausted and left feeling burned out. just the thought of scrapping became daunting to me. i was too tired to be creative & when the stars & planets aligned just right & i did find time, desire & energy to scrap, the laptop i was using started having MAJOR issues. it took hours to complete just 1 layout because i had to save after every 2 actions lest i wanted the program to crash. also, when i wasn't fighting w/my laptop, i was busy downloading every single kit, paper pack, embellishments, you name it from the very very talented world of designers on the internet. i started a huge organizing project to get all of those files under control (um...i'm not done). so basically, i was overwhelmed....drowning in a list of must dos and crazy computer problems.

NOW....there's hope!! as we speak my BRAND SPANKING NEW hp pavillion dv6000t laptop is being built and will be on its way and it is being customized to fit my scrapbooking needs (& my other secret passion the sims 2). Also, this weekend, i'm getting a BRAND SPANKING NEW digital camera (either sony cybershot or canon power shot). it was very hard to wrap my mind around the concept of spending all of this $$$ on myself which made me realize i had a serious self-neglect problem. although i withdrew from scrapbooking i still lurked around my favorite sites & i read digital scrapbooking magazine for inspiration that i hoped to someday use.

so now i will make time for myself to do the things i enjoy doing purely for the sake of doing them & not because it'll benefit someone else. now that i will have the proper equipment hopefully my hobby wont be as frustrating. so...please visit me again. i'm sure the next post wont be as lengthy (although i can't make any promises lol) and soon i'll start posting my layouts!