Conversation starter

No doubt I live an odd life.  Without getting into details because it would take a long, long time to type out the entire explanation, I live in my ex-husband's house in a long-term temporary arrangement at his request.  It has to do with kids, travel, business, money, real estate markets bottoming out.  You know, the usual.  Everyone who hears the story thinks I'm a little nuts, but in time they realize that the arrangement is beneficial for everyone.

Well, almost everyone.  When this plan was presented to me, I somehow thought that my boyfriend would enjoy seeing less of me.  As a lifelong bachelor he's doesn't really "need" to see me every day.  He lives alone and is one of those people who rarely suffers from boredom.  I, on the other hand, went from a house with 4 kids to college with a roommate and dozens of other girls on the hall, to marriage with 4 kids coming in rapid succession.  Being by myself is a luxury in the small increments that it comes, but for long periods...I'm not proud it, and I'm not going to say I was lonely per se, but...I like a little bit of company.

As it turns out, my boyfriend has not been thrilled about the "space" this has created.
Learning this came as a bit of shock.

We've since had little conversations - actually more like passing comments - that when this arrangement comes to its conclusion, we'll live together.  Looking back on our conversations I have to admit that it's been assumption on my part - not something explicitly discussed, much less actually agreed upon.

One day in mid-May we went to the movies and on the way home I was pointing out different bungalows I liked along the way.  Parma is riddled with cute, tiny bungalows with small, quaint yards.  I think I told him that I liked the front porches and the idea of spending evenings sitting out there.  I may have mentioned that lawn maintenance isn't something I want to have to spend lots of time on.  He asked what made a bungalow a bungalow, and I think I stumbled through some general qualities.  That evening I did a Google search to show him more definitively what's so neat about a bungalow.  I found myself drooling over floor plans and I was thrown back in time to when I would pore over home plans the way other girls would dream about weddings.

Several days later we were given the prompt

Make a wish list layout today, or pick one goal or  and create a page about it.

Having gone back and peaked at one particular house plan a half dozen time in the course of those 3 or 4 days, I knew what list I wanted to make.  My wish list is about home.  And my future.  And the peace and contentment that I see there.

Again.  Not in love with the design.  The scale is off.  I like the colors, but the picture needs to be bigger, the tilt is gratuitous (isn't all scrapbooking bordering on gratuitous??) and it needs just a little extra punch.

But that's not the point of this post.  What I love about this layout is the fact that it started a conversation between my boyfriend and I.  I don't know if he knew that owning a home was anything that would interest me.  I have long put it out of my head as something that I could never afford, and since I couldn't afford it I wasn't going to "waste time" day dreaming about the possibility.

Coincidentally, a week or so after this layout was made one of our semi-regular customers was telling me a story about a Chinese exchange student staying at his home.  She asked him, if he didn't mind,  to tell her how much his house would cost.  He said it was hard to know, as they had purchased it in the late 1970s, and the real estate market is still highly unpredictable, but he would guess around $140,000.  I think my mouth may have dropped a bit.  I don't know what his house is like, but I know the area he lives in, and it's nice.  Older homes, mature trees, good schools...  I had expected more.  A lot more.  That night I started looking at real estate websites and was pleasantly surprised at what homes are now going for.  There are beautiful, established homes that really are priced at $130-$140K.

While I was looking at these houses I decided to show one to Kerig.  More "Hey, did you know you could get a house like this for this price??" than "Hey, let's buy a house!"  We were instant messaging at the time, so he was off doing his own thing and I was pretty much window shopping all evening, with little bits of conversation thrown in here and there.  At one point I was talking about something and he answered with something like "Pretty much anything that has to do with house decisions is going to be your call."  I was confused by the statement, and assumed initially that he meant "If you're going to buy a house, you should decide what you want and get it."  But that's not what he meant.  He meant that he wasn't the one who had big opinions and so he would defer to me.  He was telling me that I could pick.

This turned into a very cursory conversation about home ownership, mortgages, living arrangements, the future in general.  Its not that we haven't talked about the future in general, but we haven't started to get specific about it.  I'm not crediting my layout 100% for this conversation.  And certainly the fortuitous comment from my customer helped, but ultimately I will say this: It opened a door.  It allowed me to say what my dreams are.

Reflecting on my dreams and scrapbooking them?  Therapeutic.
The conversation that it helped start? Wonderful.

Therapeutic

So in my last post I mentioned that I wanted to talk about a couple more layouts that I did for LOAD.  These are not layouts that I love, in fact, design-wise I think they both leave a lot to be desired.  My thought for wanting to share them is to highlight how oddly therapeutic scrapbooking can be.

When I was a younger mother of younger children, there were...days.  Most mothers of small children will know what I'm talking about.  The day that I ran upstairs to brush my teeth before heading to the grocery store only to come back downstairs three minutes later to find Ted, ready to go in his navy blue pea coat, standing in front of the open refrigerator chucking eggs into the dining room - a half dozen or so broken eggs floating on the carpet?  This was not one of those days.  I had to stifle my laughter at this creative mess but there was something gleeful about how proud and fascinated about this fun discovery he was.  But the days of overtired toddlers, the he's-touching-me's, the days of two steps forward three steps back with cleaning/laundry/food prep, the 2 a.m. sheet changes for whatever accident that occurred, ear infections upon ear infections....THOSE are the days.  The days that when you finally get everyone to bed and you don't have the energy but rather the NEED to indulge in some "me" time - when you sit down to scrap and look at pictures of these sweet, innocent, funny, rambunctious, smart, loving, BEAUTIFUL faces and thank God you have a hobby that puts these amazing pictures in your hands at moment when you need to be reminded that he's-touching-me is normal and temporary and sign of healthy, happy kids.

Yes.  Scrapbooking is therapeutic.  I've known that for 13 years now.

But, like most scrapbookers, I've traditionally documented happy stories and memories, largely revolving around the kids or our family activities.  My children are older now, they're all in school full time except the oldest who has recently left home to work full time.  We don't have the luxury of time to spend lollygagging  at the park, the pool, the museum, the beach.  There are part time jobs, baseball tournaments, softball games, concerts, field trips, work and school to attend to.  I don't take pictures as much as I used to.  And I don't have "those days" like I used to.  I have fewer pictures to scrap, fewer stories that I can document, but still a desire to sit and play with paper.

As I said in my last post, one of the neat thing about LOAD is that creating a page daily sometimes puts you in the position of not having a family/kid story to tell.  Or maybe you do, but something else fits the prompt a bit better, and since you'll be creating again tomorrow, there's no guilt in taking a day to create something that's not about the kids.

One of the prompts this month was to scrapbook something hard.  She didn't say we had to name names and put all the dirty laundry out there.  We could a vague as we needed to be, if that's what the situation called for.  I suppose I could have been more vague.  That would have been the tactful way of handling my difficult subject, especially seeing as how it was going into the LOAD gallery where 270+ women would have the opportunity to scrutinize my situation and the pain that emanates from it.  But there was no sense, to me, at addressing this subject in an anything less than an honest way.  I guess I should just let you see what I'm talking about:

The title has been redone in a more fitting font, the "e" is no longer sitting on the bird's head.  And yet, design-wise, I don't like it. 


I'm pretty certain that if you click on the layout it'll enlarge it enough to struggle through the journalling.  I'm not so eager to throw my parents under the bus that I'm going to post the journalling in an easy-to-read format.

I hope that one day, when my kids are a little older and more mature, that this will help explain why their grandparents don't talk to their mother.  I'll be honest: I felt shitty making this page, like I was airing my dirty secret.   But then something happened: another LOAD participant commented, thanking me for sharing my story and she told me that it had inspired her to document her story. Her's was a story of parental control - similar, but not exactly the same, but enough that we could really relate.

And in reading her story a weight was lifted.  I know there are lots of stories like mine out there, but I don't personally know anyone who is going through the same type of abandonment as I am.  People close to me know my story.  They understand what's going on, and they know that it affects me.  But they don't know how it feels, and among other things, it feels LONELY.  So to know that there's someone out there - someone that I know - who is going through this same sense of loneliness and abandonment makes me feel less isolated.  That I know that she isn't a bad person, isn't deserving of this treatment allows me to see myself in the same light.  I love that this story wouldn't have been told if it weren't for LOAD, and I love that in telling it I found someone else with the same pain.  I hope that reading my story brought her some peace, as reading hers brought to me.

Ironically, my mother had a cross stitch piece in the kitchen that read "A joy that's shared is a joy made double, a sorrow shared is but half the trouble."

I was going to talk about a second layout with therapeutic value, but I think I'll save that for another day...

LOAD Blog Hop!

Hellllo LOADies and Gentlemen!
(Ouch.  That was sooo bad!)

Welcome to the LOAD blog hop!  I hope you've enjoyed visiting all the blogs before me and that you have enough energy left for this entry and Mama Du's.

By now, everyone who happens by this blog knows that LOAD stands for LayOut A Day. Think scrapbooking meets Iron Chef meets busy life.  Sheer insanity that's good for the creative soul.  As one who tends to back-burner my creative outlets when life gets busy (when is it not??), signing up for LOAD is a way to remind me what I believe in my core to be true: women are creative beasts, and we NEED some kind of outlet for that.  Denying that for long stretches is bad for us...and those within a 25 foot radius.

Since blogging is something that I only do when time allows AND I have something to say, I didn't blog during May.  I had plenty to say and enough layouts to share (this blog is, after all, an excuse to share layouts), but not enough time to write meaningful posts.  Rather than try to show every layout I created during the month, I thought I'd once again pick my favorite five layouts, share them, the prompts that inspired them and explain what it is that makes me drawn to them.

Working in the order in which they were created:

From Day 1.  The prompt was to strip down to the basics and create a layout using just cardstock, patterned papers, journaling and a title.  This one is in the top five because it's true. The pictures are rough, but real and "us".  The sentiment is exactly what you'd get it you sat down and listened to everything I had to say about us and had to boil it down to two words.  The simplicity of the design is true to me, yet fun and a little funky.  Even the little monsters are true: we are both a little rough around the edges and we're lucky that we each see beyond those rough edges and into the beautiful parts on the inside.

(size: 5½x8½)

Day 7.  The prompt was to scraplift.  Simple as that.  Since I think the sun rises and sets on Nichol Magouirk, I decided to copy her.  I'm certain there was one singular layout that I started with, but I also attempted to channel her general approach.  She frequently layers her titles like that, uses the fun borders and she's a master at mixing and matching patterned papers.  While I love the way it looks, it's not something I do with ease.  I love the way this came out and I loved that I was able use an extremely old photo and combine it with my very current emotions about my oldest son.

(size: 8½x11)

Day 16.  The prompt was embellishments...blah blah blah...something about using a plain photo and a plain background and adding embellishments to convey what you want to say.  Hmmm.  As with all things embellishy, I think I failed miserably.  But that doesn't mean I don't like the layout.  I do.  What I like is  that I finally documented the meaning behind my tattoo.  It's something I've meant to do for a long time, but it seems superfluous.  At least within the context of LOAD I can say "I couldn't come up with a better story/photo that day!"

I do love that about LOAD.  Sometimes you tell stories/document things that you wouldn't otherwise address, solely because you need to create daily and your mind gets pushed in new and different directions.

Interesting aside (sort of, anyway): People rarely ask about my tattoo.  Maybe 5 or 6 times in the 6 years I've had it.  But not three days later another mother at Ted's baseball game asked me - loudly and in front of many other parents - what the meaning was behind the tattoo.  I've always struggled with bottom lining what it means, so I was grateful that I had finally organized my complex thoughts that lead up to its design.

Day 21.  The prompt was to start with the design and then move into the story and photos. That's not really how I work.  I start with the photo(s) and/or the story in mind and then the design follows, dependent upon the space needs.  I think I tried to switch it up, but ultimately, my focus on the story and photos is too far ingrained to abandon just for the challenge.  On this one, I love the title, the map paper (especially that it has both our starting and ending destination cities) and the way the text actually really lines up with the notebook paper lines.  :)  It's the little things that please me.  I also love that I was able to put another little dent in these photos from almost three years ago.

(size: 8½x11)

Day 30.  The prompt was to do your own thing, make your heart sing.  Because I was away from home, I had to try to make my heart sing digitally.  This isn't my strong suit, but I kind of fell into a kinda-sorta-albeit-made-up digital style this month.  Why is this in my top five?  Two things: I am passionate about being in my books.  Not for me, but because it will mean something to my kids one day. Also, I like what I wrote.  Some of it stuff that I absolutely embrace and have successfully put into practice on a daily basis  (the karma thing, the thing about exercising the brain, the get what you give philosophy) and others are things that I know to be true, but have to keep reminding myself to actually do.  I'm also pleased that the photo, while crappy, is actually current.  I think we're all guilty of trying to hide behind younger, skinnier, prettier pictures of ourselves.  I know I do - just check out the picture of me at the bottom of the blog.  It's four years old and gaining.  That I used a current picture makes me feel strong that I can put myself out there/in there.

So those are my favorite five layouts from the month.  In the next couple of days I'd like to talk about a couple of more that had special meaning to me.  If you're so inclined, I'd love to have you back early next week.

I hope you enjoyed this.  I hope I didn't wear you out with all the words, words, words.  Please take a couple more minutes and visit my friend Kathleen, aka "Mama Du".  She's a wonderful photographer and talented scrapper.  Definitely worth the visit!

Thanks for stopping by!

By the way, if you're stopping here first, here's the complete blog hop list.  Warning: at the end of viewing these amazing ladies' blogs you'll be chomping at the bit to sign up for the next LOAD!

Ecoscrapbook
At the Blue Barn
Capture Your 365
Happie By Abbie
Trista Hertz
Goes Turbo Creative
She's a Crafty Pumpkin
Pouring Over Pictures  <===  you are here.    :)
Taking Pictures. Enjoying Life.

Photography Contest.

So...I work for a camera store and Tamron sponsored a employee photo contest.  Not mandatory, but strongly encouraged.  We had to use five specific lenses from their current line up, with photos falling into one of the following themes: People, Nature, Abstract, Close Focus and HDR.

I do not call myself a photographer.  I'm really not that good.  And frankly, I used to love it a lot more than I do now.  But every once in a while I take a shot that rekindles the love.  And sometimes that spurs a new interest.  I am grateful for the contest for relighting a fire that had faded out for a while.

Two twists to the contest: you had to submit one picture using each of the five lenses. And the pictures being submitted had to fit one of the categories.  I guess that doesn't sound much like a twist, until you think that any pictures of people will require a model release.  Pictures of nature generally require good light.  HDR requires special software, know how...and you have to shoot in RAW, which I'm practically allergic to.  Yeah, I realize it sounds like I'm whining.  And, oh, did I.  I went out shooting a bunch of times, only to realize later that nothing I shot fit the categories.  Oh! The frustration!

But here's what I got.  And since there's rarely such a thing as "no particular order", these are presented in the order in which they were taken.

Super Moon over Legacy

Taken with the Tamron 10-24.  And...uh...the 70-300.  It's a composite shot, the moon wasn't really *that* big.  Do I think it'll win?  Hell no.  But it was the only thing I had for that lens.  (remember: we had to enter a picture using each lens)

Ted Goes Golfing

I think we all had or favorites from this contest.  Mine was definitely the 70-300.  That thing is so tack sharp and so fast focusing, I couldn't help but to fall in love with it.  I have a Nikon 80-200 f/2.8.  A fantastic lens to be sure.  But I still covet the 70-300.  In comparison, the Tamron is way faster and lighter and it's easier to deal with it because of the size difference.  I'm not giving up my Nikon lens, but I wouldn't mind having the Tamron to keep it company. 

Ted's Lucky Day

Two things: the version I printed out and turned in had better skin tones.  Also, don't love this, but again, I needed something using this lens - the 17-50 f/2.8.  Fantastic lens, but again, forgot to take pictures that really fit into the categories.   I don't think it's a winner - I'm sure we'll see some really terrific portraits, but this is Ted and that's a genuine smile.  On this day Ted hit two out of the park home runs, had 2 RBIs, threw a kid out at second, got the game ball...and as if all that wasn't enough, he found a $50 bill on the field.  

Walking on Sunshine

Hmmm.  When it comes to lenses, I'm a little bit of a snob.  I've been "raised" to believe that anything that offers this much versatility can't possibly be as good as shorter ranged lenses.  But this was taken with the new 18-270 PZD lens, which is fast, quiet and tiny.  I'm not in love, but I'm definitely in like!  

Bee

60mm.  I literally had to blink back tears several times at work on Thursday.  Contest entries were due on Friday and I didn't have a shot to submit for this lens.  And remember: it's all five or none.  We don't own these lenses, we borrowed them from the store.  In my store, we're all Nikon shooters, so we were all vying for the same five lenses.  This is - no doubt - a sweet and fun lens to shoot.  Because of it's close focusing capabilities the possibilities with it are endless.  I walked to the bank on Thursday morning and noticed these beautiful irises at McDonald's.  I didn't immediately think to come back and shoot them.  3 hours later it finally occurred to be to grab a camera and go shoot it.  I think this might be the definition of serendipity.  I didn't go looking for a bee, I just figured the purple and orange would look cool - heck, I didn't even notice that the stamen was so fuzzy.  I got really lucky with this one - this petal happened to have the best light on it and along came this bee.  I'm crossing my fingers that this one gets recognized.  

We'll see what happens with this.  Frankly, I'm hoping that our store can get the store recognition prize.  With a small store I'm hoping we get some props for 100% participation.  

Day 4 AL*

*AL= After LOAD

(blah blah blah, skip ahead if you know this already: LOAD is a layout challenge hosted by Lain Ehmann in which participants create a LayOut A Day for every day in a designated month.  Since we're all busy, this is part challenge, part exercise in insanity.  But the sense of accomplishment at the end of the month is amazing.)

So one would think that after creating 31 layouts in the month of May that I would have that particular bug worked out of my system and I wouldn't want to touch a photograph for months.  Apparently there's something wrong with me.  When I was young people would say "Oh, I'll bet you get so sick of McDonald's food, working there all the time."  Uh, hello?  No.  Give me a plain double cheeseburger and watch me smile while I chew.  Nope, it never happened.  And while I find the need to move on to move onto other activities post-LOAD, I do so because I have to, not because I'm sick of scrapbooking.

Here is the abridged version of my weekend: Laundry. Baseball. (beer!) Baseball. Baseball. (pizza!) (scrapbook!) Baseball.  Softball.  Laundry.  Items in parentheses represent treats along the way, as opposed to the obligatory nature of the other items.  I don't know if you noticed, but that's A SHIT TON of baseball!  And for someone who's not - by any means - a sports fan, that's a full on metric shit ton.

Today Ted had two games in a tournament.  The first game was painful.  We had lost by the end of the second inning.  First, the other team was enormous - 75% of the team was bigger than Ted, and Ted is by far the biggest kid on our team.  But they weren't just big, they were good. They hit well, they pitched well, and, on the rare occasion we made contact, they fielded well.  Add to that: we just didn't play well.  We were run-ruled in the 5th inning.  I didn't even pick up my camera.

The kids took a break for lunch and I had a nice chat with the coach.  Every time I go to one of Ted's games (which isn't often enough unfortunately) people tell me how great Ted is.  Today it was the coach.  He told me that the team unanimously voted for Ted for team captain.  He said he loved having Ted on the team.  And then he said "You did a really great job with him."  Wow.  Typically I don't run around taking credit for Ted.  I am pleasantly surprised by him nearly every day.  But I suppose that wasn't entirely an accident.  Maybe his father and I have helped fine tune his already good character.  At any rate, what an awesome compliment.

Game two was a better match up, so it seemed worth while to pick up my camera.  Ted was pitching (38 throws with 31 strikes) for the first couple of innings, but my favorite shots came from an exchange on first  base.  Ted is not small.  He's 5'8" and probably 160 pounds.  He looks like he can hit.  (He can)  He doesn't look like he can sprint.  So he was walked.  Once there he was immediately taking the lead, looking to steal second.  I don't know if they really thought that they'd get him out or if the goal was to wear him out because he was the pitcher.  Considering the first inning was three up three down, it wasn't a bad strategy.

So here's how the exchange went:
Ted takes a couple big steps towards second.
Pitcher whips the ball to the first baseman.
Ted dives back to safety at first.
Ted gets up, first baseman throws the ball back to the pitcher.

Ted takes a couple big steps towards second.

Pitcher whips the ball to the first baseman.

Ted dives back to safety at first.

Ted gets up, first baseman throws the ball back to the pitcher.

Ted takes a couple big steps towards second.

Pitcher whips the ball to the first baseman.

Ted dives back to safety at first.

Ted gets up, first baseman throws the ball back to the pitcher.

Ted takes a couple big steps towards second.

Pitcher whips the ball to the first baseman.

Ted dives back to safety at first.

Ted gets up, first baseman throws the ball back to the pitcher.

No lie.  FOUR times that pitcher forced Ted back to first.  But the fifth time Ted made it, sliding into second.  By the end of the exchange Ted was covered in dirt - face, arms, hands and both sides of his uniform.  

I have about 20 pictures from the exchange, and I wish that I could use them all to tell the story, but there isn't space, so it gets boiled down to this:

LOAD fallout

Seriously.  The place is a mess.

I have nice jugs.

I love a little double entendre.

A coupe of weeks ago I was out shopping for a cute, professional outfit to wear to do some teacher observation at the local high school. I was surprised at how expensive relatively shoddy apparel has gotten. To make matters worse, I've gained a fair amount of weight in the last two years. I could sit here and list a hundred excuses for why, but it all boils down to: I have been putting too much of the wrong kinds of foods (and drinks) into my mouth for far too long and it caught up to me in a big way.

This whole teaching thing... I feel like a torch has been lit under my butt - I haven't been this motivated to do something in a long time. And, while I'm focused on learning everything I need to that will make me a good teacher, I realize that my physical appearance affects me, my self-esteem, my confidence, my physical endurance, and last but not least, how others perceive me. Standing in front of a room full of high schoolers is going to be one of the bravest things I'll ever do. And I'm not going to lie - the idea of student teaching scares me half to death. I'm thinking Depends might be appropriate for that first week or so. (kidding)(I hope)

Do you see where I'm going here?

On the way home from shopping I had this moment of clarity concerning something I had been mulling around for a couple of months. With my current body, I would require a whole new wardrobe of teacher-appropriate clothing for student teaching and long term teaching position. OR, I could get serious about finally losing all this weight I've gained. I could feel better about myself, and avoid buying new clothes for a body I was really unhappy with. I'd been eying up NutriSystem, but the price: OY. And yes, it will cost me more than buying new clothes. And I'm not promising that I won't buy new clothes when this is done. At least I'll have the option. Right now, I don't.

So now I'm 2½ weeks into it. Just far enough into to assess whether it's long term doable. So far so good. I've always thought of NutriSystem as just eating their pre-packaged food, and there is prepackaged food, only supplemented with LOTS of fresh fruits, vegetables, protein and dairy. And did I mention the jugs? Holy cow: I start every day with filling the two jugs shown with filtered water (I ♥ my Brita water pitcher!) and end every day by making my 97th trip to the potty. It's about portion control, eating healthy foods and drinking more water than I previously thought possible. All good habits to make and keep. Here's hoping.

Winning the Mother LOAD

In my last post I mentioned that I was doing Lain Ehmann's Layout A Day (to be referred as "LOAD" from here on out...that's how all the cool kids say it).  I had this pie in the sky notion that as I completed layouts I'd post them over here, too.  There's even a handy-dandy post-to-your-blog button on Flickr, but I quickly found out that it made little teeny tiny images over here, and what's the point of sharing a layout (or a photo, for that matter) if no one can appreciate its juicy goodness.  So I did one day and then stopped.  And really, I didn't have time to post here and there anyway.

But I thought I'd share share some of my favorites.  I was really surprised at how much true-to-me scrapping I did this month.  I thought that given my time crunches I'd be reduced to slapping a photo on some cardstock and  throwing down some meaningless journaling and call it a day.  I'm not saying that I didn't have my fair share of simple pages, or pages with meaningless journaling, but I also had a fair number of pages that I might have created on a day without the time constraints that LOAD provides.

Without further ado:

I'm nor gonna lie.  This is a total, complete and nearly exact scraplift of Jen Gallacher's page, I'm not even going to take creative credit.  But good Lord.  Is that not the cutest thing EVER?  The reason I did such an exact copy was, well...duh...because it's the cutest thing EVER, but also because I *thought* that by not having to make ANY decisions this would be quick.  HA HA hahaha ha.  Boy.  Was I wrong.  Granted, if I had come up with the entire concept it would have taken me four times as long, but as it was, it still took roughly 2 ½ hours.  Not quick.  But cute!  Cutest thing ever, in fact.  Did I mention??

The prompt for this one was to find a digital page that you liked and convert it to paper (if you're a paper scrapper), or a paper layout and convert it to digital if you're a digital scrapper.  The inspiration layout was 12x12, a boy layout with browns and blues.  I liked the flow of the page and the circular photo.  I usually don't do super girly (contrary to what this post looks like so far), but I really like how it came out.

On the far opposite end of the spectrum...  This was a super fast layout for me.  It came together in roughly 45 minutes, start to finish.  Usually it takes me that long to figure out what photo I'm going to use. Before load I *never* used stickers.   No way, never gonna happen, don't care how boring you think my pages are: NO STICKERS!  But I have to say...sometimes you just have to give in to what's easier.  And I really like the school colors on this - usually I find that color scheme and theme...kind of...overwhelming?  cheesy?  uber juvenile?  I don't know, but it's rare that I see a back to school layout that I like.  By the way, the journaling on this is just about how back in the day we needed spiral notebooks and #2 pencils, and now kids need multiple boxes of Kleenex and jump drives.  How things have changed.

Some one recently asked if I liked myself.  My gut reaction was "No."  First, I was raised in an extreme "Don't brag.  No one likes a bragger!" household. But you know, I DO like myself.  I'm not perfect, I've got my faults and things that I work on almost daily.  But you know...I have some darn fine qualities, too.  There's nothing wrong (Mom!) with recognizing that you're a decent person.  I like so much about this layout.  The way the arrow colors pop, the way the colors of the "good" qualities are happy and the colors of the "not good" arrows are a little more muted.  I like the serendipity that the word "perfectly" ends right at the edge of the picture.  I like the simplicity of the layout and the title.  I need to add another arrow that says "damn fine scrapbooker!"  :P

This one was done on the second to last day of the challenge.  Each day Lain would send out a short but inspiration email with a prompt at the end.  Some were wacky, some were challenging, some were fun, but they all worked...  I read the prompt and my mind started stumbling over itself coming up with ideas for ways to creativity (and me-ly) follow the prompt.  On this day she said she was giving us a freebie day.  She said we deserved it.  I have to say.  I was a little devastated.  I had made 26 layouts already and my creativity was running dry and I was hitting a VERY big wall.  And my own personal cheerleader was doing his thing: "Are you done yet?  Are you done yet?"  Which really wasn't helping too much.  :P  I was dang near throwing in my towel.  I didn't even have anymore recent photos to work with.  Cue the old pics.  These were taken in 2008 on a trip to Colorado with Kerig.  I've had them printed for ages, but I don't really scrap that much and I just didn't know what to say about them.  Somehow, on this day, I figured out what to say.  There's still more from that trip, I hope to tackle them soon.  Just in case you're interested in what the journaling says:

TODAY is the day that I found out that not only am I afraid of heights, but -SURPRISE- the higher the height the greater the anxiety.
Kerig’s mom took us to Rocky Mountain National Park, which boasts the highest paved road in the continental United States. No biggie, right? Only to get to this point, we drove for roughly an hour up an UNpaved road. I guess maybe I knew what a switchback was, but now I’m intimately aware of them. The road was only wide enough for one car – maybe a foot or so to spare on either side, but once you were on the path, you were going up. Oh. And there was no guardrail. And as a pretty diehard flatlander I wasn’t accustomed to the way the air changed. About half way up the anxiety was really kicking in, and I put my hoodie over my face so I couldn’t see how high up we were getting, but that made it harder to breathe. So I’d take it off, catch my breath a little…get scared again, go back under the hoodie…and then I started tearing up. At the top there was a park and when we got out I pretty much burst into tears. Poor Judy either thought I was nuts or horribly ungrateful. She was sooo nice about it though, and asked why I hadn’t told them I was so afraid of heights, to which I pretty much blubbered “I didn’t know it was this bad!” Eventually my knees stopped shaking and my heart stopped racing and I could take in the incredibleness of the scenery before me.
I am only familiar with east coast mountains. Kerig is fond of saying that east coast mountains aren’t real mountains, and I had always been a tad bit offended by this. But east coast mountains don’t have snow on them in August. AUGUST!! See that thermometer pointing at 98ºF? That was taken the same day an hour away. It’s crazy to me to think that snow can exist when it’s that hot at the base of the mountain.
I may be afraid of heights, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the wonder of what an entirely different world it is up there.

Nothing super spectacular design wise here, but I *really* liked doing this challenge, and I got a lot out of it.  I think the journaling really sums up my feelings about what I gained from it:

No.  It’s not going to rhyme.  I haven’t the desire nor the ability.  But I will reflect glowingly.  This has been quite a journey.  To be honest, I don’t think I really had any intentions of actually doing 28 pages.  I figured I’d see how long I could go before I felt I had to stop.  I knew school would be an issue.  But I have always felt that the more I had on my plate, the better I become at managing both my time and my priorities.  One of the amazing things that came from this craziness is the idea of balance. When it comes to school I can drag out assignments, obsess about things. I aim for perfection and beat myself up for putting in too much time.  I’ve found that LOAD has given me a reason to motor through assignments – not do them half-ass, but not to waste precious time second guessing every decision, every word, every answer.  I’ve found that LOAD has rekindled my love of scrapbooking.  It’s always there, but I’ve viewed as a treat – the reward for having everything else done.  An indulgence.  But does it have to be?  If it’s this cathartic, should I really relegate it to a couple of hours every other month? And LOAD hasn’t made me a fast scrapper, but it’s made it easier to avoid becoming mired down in indecision.  Sleeping on a button’s placement is a luxury that one doesn’t have during LOAD.  So here I am.  28 days, 28 pages richer.  Memories, stories, pictures, love,  every day moments as well as a-ha moments recorded.                                          

Yay me. 

I really can't say enough about the LOAD challenge.  It's competitive like golf: not me against anyone else, but  me wanting to be the best, me-est me I can be.  (And by me-est: I mean true to my design aesthetic, writing style, etc...not merely trying to be someone else...although clearly, scraplifting is a-ok on occasion).  If you're a scrappy friend, I'd highly encourage you to check it out at LayoutADay.com.  It costs $30, but we are allowed to share our alum discount, so if you're interested in signing up and would rather pay $25...let me know.  ;)  The next LOAD challenge is in May...and yes, I am insane enough that I've signed up again.

The $25 primary gets you daily prompts, but it also gives you a place to upload your pages, the community is SUPER nice, comments and compliments abound.  There are periodic prizes involved and at the end...there's a GRAND PRIZE.  I'll let you know how juicy that grand prize is....cause...guess what?  I WON!  It was strictly drawn at random of all the people who completed the challenge, but still!  Box'o'goodies is a BOX'O'GOODIES...and I'm super excited about it!

And if you want to check out the duds that didn't make it to this post... :P  Check out my LOAD 211 Flickr gallery here.

Memories

Doing Lain Ehman's Layout-A-Day during the month of February. I'm a little skeptical that I can actually do 28 layouts in 28 days, but for day one: so far so good. I don't know that I'll actually bother putting them all here...some might be rather rushed, some might be kind of boring, and some might be rather amateurish. Because I will be spending some weekends away from my scrap-goodies, I've decided to dabble in digital for those days that I'm not home. I'm not claiming to be a good digital scrapbooker, but I'll probably learn a couple of things along the way, and that would be really cool!

On a roll.

Seriously.  I haven't done 3 layouts in a week since...well, a REALLY long time.  And I guarantee there was some sort of deadline involved and I ended up hating them.  So three, no deadline and liking them seems like crazy talk.

The journalling reads:

Year End 16 Review:
1. Major Art Award @ Lakeland
2. Enrolled in Driver's Ed
3. Inducted into the National Honor Society
4. Passed Driver's Test on the first try. (Yay, Maggie!)
5. Landed 1st boyfriend
6. Gold Medalist in the Molympics
(who could forget the Molympics!)
7. Attended Portfolio Show at MICA
8. Landed first job at the big BK

I'm not gonna blather on about it.  I like it.  So does Maggie.  And that's all that really matters.

(Look at me, getting all Zen in my old age...)

I will say this.  I'm getting increasingly frustrated at trying to digitize layouts for sharing.  The sheer lack of light is making it difficult to get a good photo.  I got so frustrated today that I scanned this in four parts and stitched it together.  That's so old skool.  And the results seem just as cruddy.  If anyone has some great suggestions that don't involve dragging out my studio lights, I'm all ears...

Mini Vacation

Fresh from the craziness of the Christmas season and a huge project and a final, I am perfectly content - verging on deliriously happy - to have four days off in a row and spend them in pajama pants and a fleece hoodie.  Especially since the first two were spent in my scrap room channeling Nichol Magouirk.

If you don't know Nichol, take a minute to follow the link.  I think she's a goddess, and she's easily the one scrapper I'd like to be when I grow up.  She has a way with patterned paper that is somehow both whimsical and delightful AND clean and uncluttered.  Plus, she has the innate ability to just pile on all sorts of doo dads, and they look completely effortless.  Every staple, every mini paperclip - they all look like they're exactly where they're supposed to be.  There's nothing forced or "trying too hard" in her layouts.

Nicole first hit my radar as a Silhouette design team contributor.  Since I'm all Silhouette, all the time (or so it seems, even to me) I quickly started to realize that she has a way of putting unrelated things together in a way that just plain works.  She takes shapes that someone else designed and uses them in a way that you're just sure the original designer must have intended for them.  One of the things that I love most about the Silhouette is how easy it is to customize shapes, and Nichol does that...only at the next level up from everyone else, mixing and matching titles and shapes and using all sorts of patterned papers resulting in pages that are pure eye candy.

I know there are avid scrapbookers out there who are very organized about saving layouts that inspire them.  I have not been one of those women.  First, I have it ingrained in me from God knows where that "copying" is cheating.  Really?  Where are the scrapping Refs?  Do they wearing polka dots and Pima flowers?  Are their whistles covered in bling??  It's silly.  I know.  And oddly, I don't think less of someone else who scraplifts - heck, I even admire them for their ability to let go and not get mired down in not reinventing the wheel.  Anyway, as someone who's always felt it was taboo to borrow too heavily from one source at a time, I've never felt the need to have an inspiration folder on my desktop.  But then, as magazines go belly up, and then fill their pages with designs that really don't make me excited, I find myself turning to web more and more for inspiration.  And finally it occurred to me.  Right click/New folder/"Nichol Magouirk".  Right click/Save picture as...and voila: a year and a half's worth of very inspiring layouts, all in one place, with no interruption. 

So that's the first one.  Clearly, Nicole has nothing to worry about, but I'm pleased, to say the least.  I love the fun title, the collage of pictures (I've done this before, but this time it's all about channeling Nichol), the fun number border (and how it relates to my typical December, which is about counting down, money, time, balancing gifts for 4 kids...numbers swirl in my head all month long),  I even like the way I handled a mess up.  I made the white border just a smidge too short.  I was tempted to recut it, but decided that putting it down and covering the one end with a cluster of embellishments would work just fine.  You can still see that the white border doesn't go across all the way, but now I say "Who cares?  Looks great!"  I am NOT one to embrace that kind of imperfection, so this feels like quite the accomplishment!

I can't tell you how much these photos have troubled me.  I've really wanted to get Ted's football recorded, but look at those uniforms!!  All that hideous red!  Don't get me wrong.  I like red.  It's one of my favorites.  But that red...it GLOWS.   Pre-Nicole, I would have tackled the red challenge but using grey and black cardstock with red pieces thrown in here and there...but not too close to the photos.  It would have been boring, and a little non-sequitur.  After all, the only grey in the photos is the stands in the background, and the only black is Ted's UnderAmour.  Not exactly the kind of stuff that dictates a color scheme, right?  After Nichole, I went to my patterned paper box first.  Granted, I got REALLY lucky, but still...I wouldn't have even looked before.  I love the Game Day title, it's rugged looking...not cartoony or juvenille.  I used black ink and a stippling brush to dirty it down.  It was just to perfect looking at first, but the black ink grunged it up and made it gritty enough for the page.  I used that same technique on the football lace border, and on the journalling block.  Both were far too pretty and pristine to start with. 

I'm really pleased with how both of these came out.  And more than that, I'm pleased with how quickly they came together and that I finally feel more comfortable using the patterned paper I've been amassing for YEARS.  I also like that by thinking about what it is that appeals to me about Nicol's style allowed me to break it down to very concrete ideas that were easy to incorporate.  I'm a decent scrapper in my own rite.  I won't deny that.  But it doesn't hurt to be truly inspired.  Or to get out the ruts I find myself in occasionally.

I :heart: easy

My son has a friend who practically lives at our house.  And he's just a really nice kid.  For a while I wrestled with the notion of him being a bit Eddie Haskell-ish, but after a while it just sunk in that he's one of those rare, honestly nice, kind people.  Because Ian (my son) can be sarcastic and has been prone to pushing the limits, I am very grateful for Jared's good influence. 

Last night my other son Ted came to me and asked he he could borrow one of my "tall" candles.  After some confusion and a "What the hey ho are you talking about?!", it finally occurred to me that he wanted one of the super tall birthday candles that I had gotten at Crate and Barrel a couple of years ago.  When I asked him why, he said it was Jared's birthday and they were going to put it in a Little Debbie strawberry shortcake roll and sing happy birthday to him.  One of the things that I like about Jared is that he has an infinite amount of patience for Ian's younger brother and sisters.  And they all adore him as well.

I decided to make Jared a card, and at the risk of looking like a really creepy old lady, when I came across this one in my Silhouette library I thought it pretty much said it all.  This was thrown together in about 15 minutes flat, which absolutely never happens, so it is, indeed, simple.  But I glue dotted a $10 Taco Bell gift card to the inside and signed it "Ian's Mom" and I was happy to have been able to do something for him...

Let Go.

From Reverb10


What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?(Author: Alice Bradley)

This has been a year with so many changes.  It's funny, looking back, at the things that were easy to let go of, the things that I clung to until the bitter end, the things I subbed in for those that were going, at the grumbling that occurred at times, and the silent gratitude that happened as a result.

I let go of my apartment, and the idea of living quietly and alone.  That was hard.  I love my kids and I truly welcome this chance to live with them again.  But I never had a chance to be truly autonomous until my divorce.  After 15 years of putting myself at dead last, it was nice to have a chance to be concerned with just me.  I know that sounds so selfish, and I can't even begin to justify it.  But it's the truth.  And now I am loving coming home to a full house and talking to my kids every day and helping them and being part of their lives.  They're wonderful people and this won't last forever, so I will be present and grateful for being able to finally let go and really enjoy this.

I have let go of feeling powerless to control my direction.  Since my divorce, money has been a HUGE issue and driving force in every aspect of my life.  This whole goofy circumstance has freed me from paying rent, utilities, and internet access.  That's no small amount of money.  That, in turn, allowed me to go to a four day work week.  I'm still full time, but I do make less than I would if I were there 5 days a week.  The four day work week empowered me to the think that I do, in fact, have PLENTY of time for school.  Ha.  I don't know if I have "PLENTY" of time - there are lots of times when I feel overwhelmed and stressed, but for the most part, I've got enough time to get it done, and get it done to my standards. For the first time since I left I have this peaceful "I'm gonna be okay" feeling.  I have direction, a goal, really attainable dreams, a concrete road map...  It really would have been difficult to juggle work and my school when I was at my previous job.  But I think that it was easier to say "I can't", than "I don't want to work that hard."  I'm glad that things have changed to where I'm working hard, but it feels manageable. 

There are other things/people that I need to let go of. But it's not easy, right?  It's a process.  And frankly, it happens organically, and even though  know I need to let go of something doesn't mean I can just make it happen.  Would that it were so.

Wonder

So, because I'm a sheep, and what sheep do best is follow, I decided to follow Ali Edwards' lead again and try this whole weird Reverb10 thing.  I like the way I call it a thing...that's totally somebody's mother being all judge-y there, right?

I hope, over the next couple of days, to catch up on the three days I missed, but for now, I'm going to start on the 4th prompt:



 December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)


Hmmm.

I think I cultivated a sense of wonder by signing up for the TEEL program at Notre Dame College.  Since I've been working towards my teacher licensure I haven't  stopped wondering...  Long parts of my days are spent wondering:

• Am I doing the right thing?
• Was this a wise investment?
• Will I be a good teacher?
• Will I actually get a job when this is all said and done?
• Am I actually smart enough for this?
• What the hell are Grade Level Indicators?
• SPA standards??  Huh?!
• How much money will I make?  Will it be enough to support me?
• How long will this take?
• Will I be able to get a job in a district I want to work in?
• Am I doing this assignment right??
• WHY do we have to upload stuff to Tk20?

And on, and on, and on...

Anyone that knows me will tell you I'm a worrier.  But it's not just worrying.  It's wondering, daydreaming, hoping... wishing.  I am so very excited about the changes I'm making for myself.  I am so grateful for the goofy circumstances I'm in that have afforded me this opportunity.  I'm so happy that the people affected by this are willing to stand by me and support me.  I'm eternally indebted to the people who have made concessions to my schedule, who have listened to me whine, who have given my children rides to sports practices...  I am fully aware that I'm not doing this alone, and I have not stopped wondering how this "chance" happened into my lap all these years after I thought that "chance" was gone.

There are lots of ways to wonder, and I realize mine may not be the most romantic, or touching, but to me it is the happiest bunch of questions that I could be asking myself right now.

October Joy Mini Album

blah blah blah, insert paragraph about absentee blogger here... 

One of the things I'm coming to realize about my picture taking habits is: I LIKE OCTOBER.  I mean, REALLY like it.  There's something about putting on a sweatshirt and dragging the kids out, the crisp air, the excuse for hot chocolate afterwards.  Everywhere you look the world is putting on a show.  The perfect background for portraits is all around.  Who doesn't glow when shot against those beautiful yellows, oranges and reds?

This day was supposed to be about hunting for pine cones.  Why?  Because this summer I bought big bottles of brown and copper glitter on deep discount, with the pie-in-the-sky thought that we'd find some cool pine cones, paint some glue on them, sprinkle them with glitter and voila, we'd have a cheap and easy craft and cheap and easy fall decorations.

Ha.

I'm certain that there are plenty of pine cones laying around just waiting to be picked up for glittering, but very few existed at Squire's Castle on this particular Tuesday.  But that's quite alright - I'll take the pictures I got on this particular Tuesday over pine cones any day.  Besides....  You can buy pine cones from etsy.com - really cool pictures of my kids leaping out of a castle window are much harder to come by.

 

I'm sure it goes without saying that the shapes are all cut from my Silhouette.  The album was purchased from TwoPeas last year, it's by Maya Road, and I'm fairly certain that this particular book is long gone.  Shame, really.  Turns out I love the visual cacophony that it creates.

Journaling reads:

Eleven months of the year, the answer to the question "What's your favorite month?" is, without hesitation, "June!"  After all, it is a month of birthday cake, long days, trips to the pool, flowering Bradford pears, and sleeping with the windows open.  That's the total package, if you ask me.

But then, October shows up and it, too, has birthday cake (thanks, Ted!), and it often offers the opportunity to sleep with the windows open.  Add in ghost stories and changing leaves, and suddenly I realize that it's wrong of me to hate a month just because it got assigned a space on the calendar too close to December for my liking.

So for one month of the year, October is my favorite month.

For one month of the year, I drive to work with a smile plastered on my face because the world is so crazy beautiful.

And if I play my cards right I get an afternoon with the kids to enjoy it.

Just a point of note, the page on the right is acrylic.  I like the way it allows what's behind it to show through, but I have to admit, sometimes it's intimidating to work with.  The control freak in me has to really let go.

Left page Journaling:

It was a lovely day, and I had my camera.  The children were clean...  It was a good day for a portrait.

Right page Journaling:

I like that they just know how to pose in a way that captures their individual personalities.

Two points of note:
I really dig the picture of Maggie.  Need to remember this for senior portrait time.
I really dig the leaves scattered under the tree on the right page.  I think I'm so clever because I folded the leaves in half and ran them through the Xyron so only half would be covered by adhesive, and therefore they're a little more three dimensional.  They're also falling off, so so much for my creative genius. :P

See? 3D GENIUS!

I want credit for including that picture of me with the kids. I practice what I preach, as PAINFUL as that may be.

Journaling reads:

They set themselves up this way, they knew I'd fall for it and shoot it.

But what's not to love?  The serenity, tranquility, the beautiful colors, the scale of the trees...   Beautiful.

The journaling for the three pages simply reads:

Molly is a timid jumper.

Ted is a fearless jumper.

Maggie is a showy jumper.

I'm not crazy about the extraneous journaling.  But then, I also don't care.  As Maggie said when she was looking through the finished book last night "It doesn't need to talk about how much fun we had.  The pictures show that we had a blast."  Fair enough. 

And now, back to my regular absenteeism.  At least until after Christmas.  I've got a pretty big assignment due at school soon, and then right into the dreaded holidays.  One of the many things that drive me to getting this school thing done and getting certified to teach is finally being able to relax during the holidays - or, if not "relax", at least be able to enjoy them to some degree...

Thanks for looking. :)