Neglect

Yesterday a friend reminded me that I have been neglecting him by not blogging, hah.
While it's been partly unintentional it's also indecisiveness about how the blog can help tell our story now that Instagram has become such an EASY platform to QUICKLY post updates.
(I actually wish ALL my friends and family used it. I LOVE seeing what life is bringing you.)

But I like the way I can tell a story here with creative sequencing and fun image pacing and there are the slideshow/videos too. I love this blog, I get a little more personal here, plus it has 13 years of our life on it—so today's decision is that I'll keep posting here.

However, Instagram lets me share things INSTANTLY and it's SOCIAL and that's something this blog isn't...there's a two way interaction in Instagram which is FUN. So, consequently I'm a little more active there (but WAY less detailed.)

I'm enjoying BOTH! So there it is.

A plug for Instagram:

Haven't given Instagram a shot? I recommend it. Your account can be personal or private, you can have up to 5 accounts, and you can block anyone you want. You can put up a sequence of photos in the same post. You can post video, temporary or permanent.

If you still want to use Facebook (WHY?) you can set Instagram up so your images and captions automatically post to Facebook too. (I hate Facebook, but love Instagram. Ironic since Facebook acquired Instagram a few years ago.) Since Instagram is image based, it's 95% less political, opinionated, and no re-posting of some celebrity's "way-off-the-mark" opinion the way Facebook is. Yuck.

You can also find people to follow that are photographing things that are relevant to your interests. (For example, I currently follow someone who teaches great DIY tips for house renovation and it's been helpful!)

You could also set up a Chatbook account so that after every 60 images you post, a $10.00 photo book will be automatically printed and mailed to you (or the grandparents etc.) 

So it's mostly a lot of fun photos and explanations of what the people I care about are up to.

I hope to see you there. :)

Disneyland!!!

After Thanksgiving, three girlfriends and I spent THREE days at Disneyland! We had SO MUCH fun, more than I was anticipating. It's truly a wonderful and surprising place and I very much enjoyed it (I haven't been since I was 14.) And the CRAFTMANSHIP that goes into making it magical? Wow! The attention to details! And I love that music plays all throughout the park. It's fun to make memories and have experiences to a soundtrack...it makes all things joyful!
Password: disneywow


Disneyland2018 from Anna Zenk on Vimeo. Music: Everybody Stomp, The Veterinary Street Jazz Band, Everybody Stomp Album: Disneyland Park + Ca. Adventure playlist

Least Favorite Ride: Matterhorn Bobsleds, so rough!
Favorite Rides: Cars and Indiana Jones, both are stand-out rides.
A ride I was surprised I liked: The Incredibles Roller Coaster
Ride that made me woozy: Space Mountain
Really Good Idea: Hotel within walking distance. Dressing alike—so much easier to stay together. The MaxPass (lets you skip ahead in line.)
Bad Idea: Wearing authentic Disney mouse ears. WAY TOO TIGHT. Had bruises behind the ears for a few days.
Worst Food: Churros (didn't like the dough flavor), the pretzel cheese (it had an after-flavor reminiscent of puke.)
Best Food: Hot clam chowder bowl, warm Ghiradelli brownie, raspberry macaron, Gaston's Brew drink.
Bad Experience: I ate so much, I very literally puked like a little kid who didn't ration her Halloween candy.
Will I go back? YES! Adam has NEVER been. I MUST take him!

See Adam Run.

Adam was on TV. Because he ran a marathon. With a guy from work.

Wellll, Adam tried to run a marathon.
Adam ran at the very end. Good thing too. We got him on video.
Password: BMW


Adam did it!

Super Saturday and Ad-hoc Meeting

The committee for our Relief Society Activities was brand-new and barely had 4 weeks to plan and carry out what we call a Super Saturday. (A three to four hour meeting for crafting, workshops, service projects and if there's room in the budget, lunch.) Sounds like fun huh?!

Our Ward had only $115 dollars to pull it off. So we had to think of little to no cost activities.
Here's what the committee came up with:

It's hard to know where to start. Which supplies do we need? What do we need to prepare in advance? How much is it all going to cost? So I came up with a spread sheet WHICH WAS SO HELPFUL, did some research, and drove around to do a bit of price checking. We sent out a sign-up sheet for ladies to donate craft items like, stain, glue, craft paint etc. This helped keep costs way down.

Next we had to prep which included purchasing, cutting, making templates, and having an example to show where possible etc. I'm not going to tell you everything I did, but I do want to say it was SO MUCH WORK and not enough time.

I do enjoy this kind of thing, but I used all my discretionary time working for nine days straight to get things ready. By the time I finished, the muscles in my back were so tight that it hurt every time I breathed out. I had to take pain killers to sleep. I overdid it. 

One of the ladies and I met up to make a physical example of the banner. After showing her how to do it, I realized crafting for some people isn't intuitive and some of the ladies were going to need step-by-step instructions.

So I threw together some simple, illustrated instructions for the banner, wreath, and joy/boo post. (See below.) This way crafters wouldn't have to seek out a person for help.
I got GREAT feedback on those. So if you're ever in charge of a craft and have a group too large to give individual attention to...this method works!

For the pallet signs, I drove around making 5 trips to find enough pallets to cut up for the signs.

Adam helped me make 35 of them. Oh yeah...did I tell you we didn't have enough time to send a sign-up sheet around so we just had to plan on about 30 of everything?
Looking back, we all agree we shouldn't have tried to do this in only 4 weeks (this included the planning stage and time to get the activities approved.) Even though Super Saturday is traditionally held in October, who really would have cared? It wouldn't have hurt to push this back to November.

Anyway...Adam did the cutting, I did the nail gun and lightly sanded each piece. This was BY FAR the most popular craft. There were only seven pallets left over. (Which later I sold so we'd have money for our Christmas activity.)

I wasn't even going to be present at the actual activity. Bummer right? (Adam and I left for Destin the week of Super Saturday. And though I was REALLY curious to see how it went, I was also relieved to walk away.)

After loading everything up in the car and dropping it off at a committee member's house we went on vacation! I turned my phone off and let fate take over. 

The general feedback I heard was: 

It was fun but there were too many projects and not enough time. 

Too many of the projects had "wait time" for paint to dry. 

They loved the fact that we'd had service crafts. 

The committee did a great job organizing the set up of the room. 

The Cheese making demonstration was fun.

When I got back I found only THREE banners had been made, ONE wreath, and the stack of socks were 1/4 finished. We had underestimated how long it would take the ladies to do a single project. We forgot to count "time for talking."

But, still. These were our service project crafts and without at least a handful of them we wouldn't be able to do our Christmas activity. The idea was to take those items to a Rehabilitation Center and decorate the halls and doors for patients, and to hand out a pair of socks to each one.

So we had to have an ad-hoc meeting. And guess where it ended up being? Yep, my house. 

I had to prepare things again. I was both frustrated and pleased to do so if that makes any sense.

I discovered I can fit three, 6 foot tables in my living room for 12 ladies to craft very comfortably. I enjoyed the evening enough to host something like it again in the future just for fun. Want to come over?

Of course when there's crafting going on, chocolate needs to be involved. Music played in the background too. So the night really was pleasant.

I had examples up of the banner, wreathes and socks.
Seven women showed up to help craft up a frenzy. I think we got about 16 banners done.

 All the socks done! About 42 pairs.

 And about 14 wreaths finished.

The wreathes take a while. They need about 40 leaves. That's a lot of cutting and gluing which the ladies weren't keen on so I made the majority of them. But they turned out cute.

Last week we took all this to the Rehabilitation Center and Decked the Halls and passed out socks. The wreathes looked so good on the doors. It was out of our comfort zone to visit with strangers but it was a growing experience and I think those who went enjoyed the service. 

Things I learned:

TWO crafts TOPS

We NEED to have sign ups. Prepping 30 of everything is unnecessary. 

If there's no sign up, people will try to do it all instead of picking a project and sticking with it.

ONE service project

Demonstration 30 minutes tops

Physical examples are great but sometimes a photo will do

Instructions are 100% helpful

Quite recently, there have been some changes made Church-wide, and I have gained additional responsibility in our Ward missionary efforts, so the Relief Society president is adding more committee members for activities (yay!) and pulling me out so I can have time to attend to the missionary weekly meetings and responsibilities. That's WAY out of my comfort zone so I guess it's time for me to grow. We'll see how that goes!