Living the Life Fantastic

Christmas ROI

December 19, 2011 By Karla 2 Comments

Last year, I wrote about the anxiety I was feeling as we entered the holiday season. Knowing it was going to be different for all of us was exciting, but it was still a struggle, that ended with me almost imploding our Christmas.

Lesson learned (for the millionth time): Wanting to do something can be easy. Doing it (with or without tears and struggle), can be a different story.

This year, I took a deep breath and determined to be a big girl about it all.

We stuck with our determination to keep it simple, and avoid getting sucked into the pressure of buying, just for the sake of buying. And (surprise!) it’s been wonderful, relaxing, and full of meaning.

Some of the free, nearly free, or reasonably priced things we’ve manage to spread throughout the season:

1) Picked our tree at Home Depot: Randy and I got the tree and set it up while the kids were at their dad’s for Thanksgiving break.

(side note: I made the door hanging from the limbs we trimmed off of the bottom of the tree. That bow? $1 at the Dollar Tree. Score one for my wallet and my sanity.)

2) Decked the halls: In preparation for their return, we strung lights all throughout the inside of the house – the kitchen, bedrooms, railings… but we left the tree undecorated (except for the lights and garland, because let’s face it – that job is hard enough without the kids having to suffer through watching me attempt to untangle all the lights while I watch my language.)

IMG 0967 300x300 Christmas ROI

3) Making ornaments: One of the things we enjoyed so much last year was making all of the ornaments for the tree. Except for a couple of little tingly bells, everything else is made by the kids. Even the star is an origami star Abbie made at school. We add to it daily, so it’s not fully decorated until the tree comes down.

I state, at least once a day, how beautiful our tree is. Not only that, it makes me smile!!!

IMG 1135 300x300 Christmas ROI IMG 1063 300x300 Christmas ROI

4) Enjoyed our town’s Christmas parade, which passes right in front of our home

5) Watching Christmas movies with all the lights out, except for the tree

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6) Dance Party – Christmas Music style

7) Attending the McWane Science Center’s Members Party

IMG 1051 300x300 Christmas ROI IMG 1368 300x300 Christmas ROI

8) Watching a preschool and kindergarten Christmas pageant

9) Driving around and looking at lights

10) Taking Abbie to see the Alabama Ballet perform “The Nutcracker” using free tickets I scored via “Sharing Spree”

11) Baking cookies

12) Adding holiday sprinkles to random food items (the kids love that!!)

13) Donating gently used clothes and toys to Jimmie Hale Mission

We’ve managed to enjoy so much, without spending insane amounts of money. The kids have spent the entire month full of wonder and joy.

Do I believe my children feel deprived? Not for one second.

I would never ever try to tell anyone how to spend Christmas. But my point is that, if you have ever considered celebrating Christmas in your own, simple, unique way, try it.

It will take some thought and planning (I’d dare say, more than it takes to do the sorts of Christmases we did before), but you’d be amazed by the ROI, when it’s purposeful.

Filed Under: Holidays, It's the simple things, Karla's blog, traditions

How I Almost Ruined Christmas

November 21, 2011 By Karla Leave a Comment

tra·di·tion/trəˈdiSHən/

The transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

A long-established custom or belief that has been passed on in this way.

One of the beautiful things about blogging is the connections we make as we read the stories of others lives and see a part of ourselves. This “keeping it real” attitude (even if it’s ~~totally~~ slightly exaggerated) is what makes us feel a bit more comfortable sharing parts of our own lives – those pieces that we might have otherwise been too scared to share.

The ugly underbelly…

And since I began blogging, over 8 yrs ago, I’ve prided myself on writing authentically and putting myself out there.

Pride.

Maybe that is the key word to this post.

We all have it, to some extent, don’t we; despite being told it can be our downfall. (and why does that never seem to play out fairly across the board??)

christmas post image2 300x300 How I Almost Ruined Christmas

My point? This is one of those stories.

I had big hopes for last Christmas.

Hopes.

Maybe that is the key word…

Or maybe it is just when hopes and pride collide.

I’m not sure which has the potential to cause the most pain in our lives.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of hope that helps keep you from dying in a pit. Or the sort that allows you to keep your sanity in the midst of unthinkable situations.

christmas post image4 300x300 How I Almost Ruined Christmas

I’m talking about the sort of hope that sends you into a frenzy of high expectations and elevated desires. The desire for perfection.

It was that hidden desire for perfection and that sense of pride that fills me when I succeed, that nearly turned last Christmas into a big fat, freakin’ failure.

We didn’t want our Christmas to be like everyone else’s. We wanted it to look different. We wanted it to be intentional and mean something more than it has in the past. So we stripped it down. Way down.

christmas post image3 300x300 How I Almost Ruined Christmas

As noble as this sounds, in the end, I panicked and got wrapped up in making the imperfect appear ”perfect” by the world’s standards. Rather than let it be and trusting my gut, I still worried what others would think, or worse, what I would think December 26th.

So Christmas eve, I fell asleep on the couch, staring at our tree which was covered completely with homemade ornaments.

Heavy-hearted, trying not to cry, I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t perfectly imperfect. I felt like a failure before it had even come to be.

So worried and convinced, was I, that the children would hate their new Christmas, that I nearly solidified that reality for them.

christmas post images 300x300 How I Almost Ruined Christmas

It was our first Christmas as a family, and I was trying to create traditions that mattered before we even knew what would matter.

But traditions should come from realizing the things that have value and meaning. Not something forced upon us.

Traditions are those unexpected things that we realize set the tone and create a feeling of bonding and connectedness.

Sometimes we get it ~~horribly~~ wrong. Sometimes we nail it.

But we never know until we try.

In the end, all of my worries and fear gained me nothing but a bad night’s sleep. It was a wonderful, beautiful day. The children were the sweetest, most grateful children you could imagine. Their hearts are so sweet and focused right where they need to be.

christmas post image5 300x300 How I Almost Ruined Christmas

I have so much to learn from them.

Filed Under: #4Kidz, Holidays, Karla's blog, Purposeful Living, traditions Tagged With: So Christmas

Coming Soon

November 2, 2011 By Karla Leave a Comment

I currently have about 15 posts in draft, and they all sit unfinished because we’ve been working on some big changes for this site.

We will be re-launching Living The Life Fantastic in the coming weeks with a brand new look and layout (as a designer, coming to this site BUGS the bejeesus out of me — it’s a perfect example of the cobbler’s children who have no shoes… in this case: it’s a crappy, slapdash site design :)

There will also be a greater emphasis on interactivity and new categories.

The site will no longer be just about our journey and telling our story, but it will include articles on how to incorporate changes in your own life.

We hope you will find it to be both inspiring and encouraging.

So – be on the lookout!!

Filed Under: Karla's blog, Our Story

Why I Run

September 18, 2011 By Karla 1 Comment

In case you missed it over on KarlaArcher.com, last week I wrote about why I run. It may not be what you think.

Why do you run? Or bike? Or take yoga?

Isn’t it always about more than it appears on the surface?

Filed Under: It's the simple things, Karla's blog

Homemade Ice Cream: so simple your kids could make it

August 3, 2011 By Karla 1 Comment

I said last week (or maybe it was two weeks ago, now… Life… seriously?!!! It happens so fast!) that I would post a recipe for our wonderfully amazing homemade ice cream. (maybe that was our popsicles, but still…)

I’m not kidding when I say that it is simple.

Remember the days of cooking the mixture because it had raw eggs? This has none of that.

Dump. Dump. Dump.

Three ingredients and you’re done (except for the waiting).

Here it is…

wait for it…

breathe…

Ingredients:

10 oz frozen fruit of your choice (suggestions: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, cherries) <— or what the heck! Add some CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!

¼ cup of sugar (or Splenda/Truvia.etc…)

2/3 cup of heavy cream

Optional: dash of REAL vanilla <— does that count as an official 4th ingredient??!!??

Some people swear by just blending this concoction in the blender to make it thicken.

Color me obnoxious, it may turn out the same, but I like to put it in the (OFFICIAL) “ice cream maker”

We like to make up our own stuff, which doesn’t always lend itself to repeating… but I found these instructions on Cooking N00bs and it is so similar (but I swear, there was no processing of our fruit! You would totally NOT want to do this to chocolate chips, right?):

1) Put the sugar, half of the cream, and half of the fruit into the blender or food processor.
2) Run the blender/processor until the ingredients have blended. Add the rest of the fruit and cream and repeat until everything is blended.
3) Freeze until serving.

I have to admit — it is better when not frozen solid. It is better when a bit mushy and soft, just like when I was a kid.

I’d love to hear what your favorite homemade ice cream recipe is.

Filed Under: #4Kidz, It's the simple things, Karla's blog, Nourishing Food, Purposeful Living Tagged With: chocolate chips, cream, food, fruit, heavy cream, homemade, Homemade Ice Cream, ice cream, ingredients, OFFICIAL, REAL, recipe, Splenda Truvia, sugar, vanilla

Dealing with a Different Lifestyle

July 22, 2011 By Karla 9 Comments

declan popsicle Dealing with a Different Lifestyle

One of the things that we have learned as we have changed the way we live, is that we sometimes need to be creative. It’s easy to be all cavalier about how we live, when we are in our own home.

But take us out in public and put us around other people and you’ll notice some quirks.

Today, at the little’s preschool, it is ‘ice cream day‘. We received a notice earlier in the week that the ice cream man would be coming each friday until the end of summer.

“Please send in money if you would like your child to have some ice cream”.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit frustrated by this request.

While it wasn’t a mandatory request, as a parent, you struggle with wanting your kids to not feel left out. Yet at the same time, we are choosing to live in a different way and this clearly didn’t fit into that:

We try to eat healthy, nutritious, whole non-processed foods.
We are on a budget.

Of course, it would be really easy to cave and fall back to old ways, out of fear of judgement.

“Just buy the darn ice cream for your child. What’s it gonna hurt?”

But what is that teaching our children if we go against something we believe in, just so our children could have a fleeting, happy encounter with a nutritionally-empty ice cream cone?

Our solution? Randy made homemade strawberry and cream popsicles this morning. The boys were absolutely beaming as we took them up to the school for them to eat instead. To say the boys were thrilled to have “healthy ice cream” to take, would be an understatement!

Who knows… maybe all of the other kids will be the ones looking at them longingly.

As I said, living differently, in whatever way, takes a lot of thought, and determination.

Your Turn: How do you handle situations where others do things differently than you teach your children at home?

please note that the purpose of this post is not to judge others who choose to give their children ice cream (or whatever), but rather to explain how we solved a problem we’ve encountered. We want to serve as an encouragement to others – not a source of condemnation

Filed Under: Karla's blog, Nourishing Food, Purposeful Living

Stay Passionate About Your Passions

June 7, 2011 By Karla 3 Comments

IMG 3986 Stay Passionate About Your Passions

Recently, Randy and I had lunch with a friend. In the course of the conversation, he asked us “How do you keep passionate about your passions?”

It was a great question, and one that we all knew he was struggling with. He’s a writer who isn’t writing what he wants to be writing.

Nothing kills passion more than feeling stuck doing something you know you weren’t meant to be doing.

When I was in college, I started as a graphic design major. It was a fairly obvious choice, since drawing and painting came naturally to me.

There were still challenges to it, despite the easiness of it for me: What to draw? What to paint? Is it finished? What more does it need? Am I telling the right story? Using the right perspective?

What I didn’t expect was that my biggest challenge would be a professor who ended up being a catalyst for my art derailment.

It’s a long story, that I won’t bore you with (for now; however, it’s a good ‘cautionary tale’, that teachers/parents/bosses etc need to hear and always keep in mind) but suffice it to say: I graduated with a degree in Elementary Education.

Thus began many years of struggling. Struggling to fit into something I wasn’t. Struggling to stifle my creativity in order to not hate myself for abandoning my dreams.

I intentionally avoided anything related to art for a time, because it was too painful. Too aware, was I, that I wasn’t doing what I knew I should be doing.

I believe that it is this very thing that makes frustrated creatives go insane. The death of a dream. Or a passion.

While I found enjoyment in many of the jobs I had in the meantime, I wasn’t satisfied by being good at doing something I didn’t want to be doing.

After my oldest child was born and I became a “stay-at-home” mom, I allowed myself to consider expressing my creativity. I tried quilting, knitting, hand-crafted wedding invitations.

But it was my daughter’s own passion for drawing which allowed me to finally return to my core.

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portrait of mama by Abbie: age 2

I didn’t have to worry about her rejection. She just wanted to draw with me. And we drew. And drew. And colored. And created amazing play-doh figures. And drew… Until one day, that spark caught fire and the passion returned.

It was not enough to just be breathing and surviving (although: thank you, LORD, for that!!)… I had become good at too many things that meant nothing to me, at the expense of the things that DO.

All of us have a passion somewhere. If you haven’t found it, trust me, there is one in there somewhere screaming to get out. You are just too busy doing other things to listen to it.

Think of the stories that haven’t been told. The paintings that haven’t been painted. The recipes that no one has tasted. The songs that haven’t been heard. The technology that hasn’t been developed. Simply because passions have been tempered and neglected.

Find the time to nurture your passion. MAKE the time. Insist on the time. (And don’t give me this “I’m-too-old-and-set-in-my-ways” crap! If you are still breathing, you still have a purpose.)

The world will thank you for it.

Filed Under: Art, Karla's blog, Purposeful Living Tagged With: Elementary Education, LORD, MAKE

May 15, 2010: The Day We Became a Family

May 15, 2011 By Karla 6 Comments

A year ago today, we got in a truck and headed out of Frederick, Maryland, and towards Birmingham, AL. It is the day we celebrate officially becoming a family, and we are dubbing it “TeamUs” day (#TeamUs is one of our many hashtags).

This morning we surprised the kids with small gifts and treats and of course, the family white board was decorated (see the gallery below) and we will finish the day with our own “Thanksgiving” meal together.

Because, truly – we have so much to be thankful for.

(The photos below are a very brief “year in review” — – click on each image for a larger view and hover your mouse over them to see description)

Filed Under: #4Kidz, #INCS, Karla's blog, photos, Sweet Home Alabama Tagged With: Alabama, family, love, parenting, traditions

Just being

April 5, 2011 By Karla 2 Comments

IMG 4226 Just being

Because we work from home, we are always there when the children are home (unless Randy is traveling on a shoot), but that doesn’t mean we are always able to get away and do something with the children. As any entrepreneur will tell you, self-employment is not a 9-5 job, so we really have to make a concerted effort to get out the house and away from our work.

We’ve never set the kids up to believe that this had to be some big crazy adventure filled with amusement rides and sugary sweet confections (although, who doesn’t love that once in awhile??) That’s not us, and it’s not what we value.

IMG 4228 Just being

What we have tried to set the standard at is: just “being”. Being together. Whether silently walking hand-in-hand, or running noisily across the grass at the playground into the arms of your loved one.

It’s about us. And reconnecting. Without the noise and distractions that we so often fill our time with.

Those are the moments worth savoring.

Filed Under: #4Kidz, It's the simple things, Karla's blog Tagged With: family, love, parenting

The Day We Finally Met Face-to-Face

February 15, 2011 By Karla 30 Comments

This time last year I was either driving to the airport… on a plane… or at my new home…

Regardless of what time of day it was, it was a life changing day. A day I didn’t see coming, less than 4 weeks before.

My life had already changed, in ways I had never imagined.

Randy and I had been trying to work out a meeting for a couple of weeks. We had discussed meeting half way, just because we wanted to get it over with if it wasn’t going to work. We wanted to know, so we could move on.

But we had also spent hours and hours going over the logistics, because we knew we had so much to figure out if it were to work. Where would we live? How would we support our family? What did we want and what did it look like??

I giggle when I recall the conversations we had in the wee hours of the night.

But this post isn’t about those talks. It is about that day — the day we finally got to meet face-to-face.

I’m actually not going to write anything about it — it was already written; through our photos and texts from that day.

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early check-in. of course.

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 0:41 :
Karla we’re now living our dream. See you later this morning. I will always love you. *kiss*

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 3:39 :
it’s no longer a dream is it?…
5hrs until i’m flying to my present and future. i love you so.

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 3:53 :
This is real. We have chosen to live our lives by our own hearts & minds. Few do. It doesn’t get anymore real than that. We are #one. <3

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 4:00 :
#one… truly… *kiss*

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 6:31 :
getting shower so i can come see you!!!! *shaking*

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 6:35 :
OMG! My life has changed … for the better. I love you Karla.

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 6:36 :
“i need chocolate. stat.”
i love you randy. i’m so happy for us.

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 7:09 :
*smile* #breathe

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 7:33 :
i’m starting my car to leave…. #zomg

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 7:36 :
OMG! AWESOME!!! Be safe <3

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 8:41 :
Wow!! <3

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 8:42 :
omgomgomgomgomgomgomg

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 8:51 :
on the bus

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 9:12 :
through security!! one hour!!!!

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 9:17 :
Can’t grin any bigger!!!!!

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 9:51 :
plane just landed… will be boarding soon!

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 9:53 :
ZOMG! This is a beautiful day!!!!

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 9:53 :
yes it is baby

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 10:06 :
getting on plane…

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 10:08 :
#breathe You’re going to fly like never before babe! You are incredible!

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 10:15 :
turning cell to airplane mode
xoxoxo

Send To Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 12:23 :
just landed!! #zomg…

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 12:20 :
I’m waiting for my other half at C terminal security. #one

From Randy Archer at Feb 15, 2010 10:17 :
Karla I’m here for you & always will be.

photo9 e1297774795250 The Day We Finally Met Face to Face

I remember when the flight attendant handed me this napkin, I laughed out loud. Truer words have never been written.

photo The Day We Finally Met Face to Face

Filed Under: #INCS, Karla's blog, Our Story, Partners Tagged With: family, love