Photo Book - Volume II

I did it again! Published a Shutterfly Photo Book, that is. I did my first one earlier this year and while it was tons of fun choosing pictures, backgrounds, fonts, and colors for the book, it was extremely time consuming. I just know you're thinking since I only work half a day a week that I've got plenty of time for such things.

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how you look at it. Keep in mind that I'm The Queen of Procrastination. Don't you ever, ever forget that. It will explain a LOT, especially where time is involved.

There are about a gazillion other things that I actually need to be doing besides compiling photo books. Like cleaning my house. And digging bulbs. Planting bulbs, too. There are those insurance claims from 2006 that still need to be filed. And there is always laundry to be done and a dishwasher that perpetually needs to be emptied or filled. I really should be better at helping keep the litter boxes clean.

Those are just a few of the necessary things. Let's not even talk about the mosaic table top that was supposed to be my "winter project" last year. Or the cushions I meant to make for the cement benches on the patio - also last year.

I've got a half-finished scrapbook of our geocaching adventures. The cedar chest holds a counted cross-stitch blanket that is only one-quarter finished. It's been there since oh, about 1985. There are also a couple of canvases just waiting for me to paint on them, but I've got to get paints first. Our basement has boxes of things I've been meaning to get listed on eBay.

I have accused my mom of having ADD. It would probably be more accurate to say she's got ADHD. But maybe what we have here is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and at least she finishes what she starts. The more I think about this, maybe she hasn't got AD anything. She's just being her usual workaholic self. I'm not really sure what my problem is.

But I've gone off on a tangent. (See now why I never seem to get anything done??) About that photo book . . .

The first time I did one of these, I took some of my favorite photos of flowers from my gardens, arranged them and labeled them, and called it botanica. That took me forever because I had to wade through hundreds, probably thousands, of pictures I've taken over the last few years that I've never gotten around to organizing very well. I finished that book with a whopping three minutes to spare before my free photo book coupon code expired.

This time around was much easier. To someone who procrastinates, easier means you can put it off longer. What made it easier was that I wasn't really doing a photo book. There are photos, but not many. I wanted to put a small collection of some of my blog posts into a book. Even though it's called a photo book, there is a text option under the layout tab and you can publish a book with only text if you want to. There are also good options for pages with mostly text and an added picture.

I chose ten of my favorite blog posts, uploaded the accompanying photos, kept the backgrounds and colors simple, and got my book submitted with SEVEN minutes to spare before the free coupon code expired.

Hey, I'm getting better at this!