Merrily we roll along...

YEE HAW! I woke up last week Wednesday morning to a nice little blanket of snow outside. It was still dark, but I managed to get a few good shots. I could have waited until lunch to come home and take photos, but I wasn't sure if the snow would last that long - looks like I was right since it turned into a mixture with rain before noon. BOO! At least we had snow for a little bit.

Christmas status - well, there's only something like 11 more shopping days after today and I'm surprisingly calm about that. The wedding albums should be arriving tomorrow from the trusty folks at UPS. We already had one made and shipped to us to check out the final product, and as soon as that happened we ordered two more for both sets of parents. I hope they like them. Another online gift was delivered today, and I'm also making a couple iron-onto canvas gifts this year that have already been designed (and printed as of five minutes ago) and just need to be put together. Once they're made I'll take a picture. Other than that, there are small things to buy for my nieces and nephews (who are old enough to gladly accept cash anyway), and an enlarged print to order for Dan's grandparents that will be sent off tomorrow probably. Plus any last minute things we decide to throw into the mix, there are always some of those. Yep, calm and collected...for now. I'm glad that it's about the thought and heart this year, rather than the money - small gifts that will hopefully make a big impact. Dan may disagree since he's the one keeping track of the money, but we're definitely within budget, hehe.

I still need to make those little thing-a-ma-bobs that I mentioned in the last post for gift tags, but those should be pretty easy considering all the supplies are at hand and the process is simple. Since I'm a pack rat when it comes to paper scraps (you never know when you'll need a little slip of something!), I have a stack of all the circle punch-outs from our wedding programs and thank you cards, and they're a perfect size to use. YAY for me! I would use our leftover purple ribbon too, but that probably doesn't scream Christmas - or match with our wrapping paper.

Last weekend we put up our Christmas tree and got out the decorations. Now they're sitting in the middle of the living room floor waiting for placement. Throughout the week Dan started to put the lights on the tree, and put garland on top of our kitchen cabinets, and I put out the nativity set. We're getting there...maybe by Christmas it'll all be done and the place will be clean. We'll have to leave the decor out until February to enjoy it for a little bit, ha.

Business status - things are just too fun right now. It's been a lot of work to get to where we are, and there's still a lot of work ahead of us, but we're enjoying each step. We've shown the photos to our three photo families already - a very rewarding part of the process, had a few greeting card orders, are looking forward to some print orders, and have started on our packaging design. We delivered two packages last night and were able to use the new packaging. IN LOVE with it so far. It's cool to see that Dan is just as interested and excited about packaging (and seeing the final products in print that go into the packaging). The best part has been feedback from our photo families and others with experience. Love the feedback and always ready for more.

One suggestion I'm following is to streamline our branding. If you noticed, we were going color with the [insert dreams here] stuff and black & white with the [photography collection] stuff. No longer - it was getting to be a hassle. We liked the division and the black and white scheme, but sometimes there was a fine line between the "is this stationery or is this photography?" debate, especially in greeting cards. After I change the photo stuff to have the same branding as stationery, then you will only see color. Some of the changes were easy and already done, but I still need to tackle the gallery.

Weight status - besides the fact that I'm eating a kitkat right now (sshhhhh...), Dan and I had our first weigh-in this past Monday. Somehow Dan lost SEVEN POUNDS in a week, and I lost three. Four pounds sounds like a good difference, but percentage-wise it's almost the same. GO US! He beat me by a tiny percentage, though, so go Dan! I was proud he lost so much the first week. I'm back down to my wedding weight, which is odd because I don't feel (or look) as thin as I did then. I don't think you could get me into a swimsuit right now, even if you drugged me and sent me back to Jamaica. I'm happy with my start anyway. The only thing I hate about losing weight is the loose dress pants and jeans. Most people would be happy about that, but I like my clothes to fit without having to buy new ones. If I go down about 10 more pounds I have a ton of jeans and dress pants waiting for me from before I started dating Dan, so I guess that's an incentive. Skinny jeans!

Mental status - I think I'm going crazy, but I have this idea to top my amount of posts from last year. Crazy? Yeah I thought so. Anyway, I posted 50 times last year, and this year I'm only at 34 including this post. Just a measly 16 MORE POSTS during the month of December and I can deem it A goal accomplished. Not sure if I can BS my way through 16 posts, but maybe you guys can ask me questions to answer here, or challenge me to take a photo with my mouth full of marshmallows or something. I do have discretion, remember, and not a lot of extra time. Maybe that'll give those anonymous guests a chance to comment - I know they visit multiple times a day, I see all.

Tonight - Dan is visiting his parents and I'm trying to knock out some things on my list. We finally got our Christmas cards to the printer yesterday (better late than never I guess), I have some packaging and branding to work on, and I wish I had a peppermint white mocha in my hands. The kitkats will have to do, though, 'cuz it's time to roll!

OH - and our friend Craig has a Christmas song up on his myspace - We Three Kings. Go check it out!