Hello Again

In the last 15 days I've been on 15 different airplanes. 

From Eugene to Portland to Miami to Lima to Iquitos to Cusco to Guayaquil to Baltra (Galapagos Islands) to Bogota to Miami to LA to Eugene (and back and forth between a few of those). 

The travel within the travel. That's a lot of time on airplanes. Enough time to read three books (more on those later) and play a whole lot of Candy Crush. 

It feels strange to be back in my house. Amidst my stuff (oh how that desire to purge is in high gear again) and the regular routines of life. 

Huge, running hugs from my kids. Home. 

I've been lucky to be able to travel with Jim West of ScrapMap over the last four years - each trip leaving a million little memories on my heart and mind. Each trip punctuated by my own personal thoughts and feelings and emotions about where I'm at in my own life. 

People travel for all kinds of reasons. 

For me it's another opportunity to learn about the world (via sights and sounds and tastes), to do things I'm afraid of, to deepen relationships with my fellow adventurers, and often to reflect on the life I'm living back home. 

And oh yeah, have some fun. 

I'll be sharing more from this adventure in the coming weeks. 

So as I settle back in I want to say thanks for sticking around even when I wasn't blogging regularly. The break from access to the internet was good for me. 

I know it was a bit of a crazy time to be gone as there is a whole lot of stuff happening around here in the next couple of months. In case you've missed it here's a run-down of what's coming up: 

Week In The Life™ begins on October 27th and people who ordered kits have started receiving them. If you get yours in the mail and you notice that the page protectors have a couple different pocket configurations (specifically a 2x2 pocket page), never fear, I'll have an updated design plan available soon that uses those as a substitution (you know how I love to go with the flow). As usual, I will be sharing my words and photos throughout the week right here on my blog. Also as usual, you don't have to have a kit to participate. It's so much more about the words and the photos and I'll share more thoughts on my documentation goals for this year next week. Digital templates for 2014 are now available for those of you who like to incorporate those into your project as well.  Lens Of Joy, my newest 4-week workshop, begins November 1st and this one is all about my photography processes and looking through the lens. You can read more about this workshop here. I'm super excited about this content.  December Daily® kits for 2014 are now available. We hope to have "real-life" images available soon (including the albums) vs. the digital mock-ups (which at least gives you an idea of what you'll see in the kit). We also have a limited number of 2013 December Daily® kits available here.  The October Story Stamp™ is also now available and this month's theme is Get Real. If you are a current subscriber you can access the education content while you wait for your stamps to arrive (click on your user name and then select My Classes). 

I also wanted to send out a general thank you to everyone as we all acclimate to this new site. I don't intend for it to always be like this - having Week In The Life™, a workshop, and December Daily® this close together is a little crazy-making (oh yeah and a 2+ week trip out of the country on top of that). I'm excited to get back into the routine of sharing layouts and projects and stories.