Happy things #28

I love scrapbooking. These are two of my favorite pages that I did this weekend. The first one is an absolutely simple, unadorned page of fantastic photos of some of my favorite people. The second is the opening page of my Patrick book, and I think it's perfect.

I got 40 pages scrapped this weekend. That makes me happy.

Happy things #27

Yes, I missed a day.

But that's because I was busy having a happy birthday.

 Look at that sunrise!

 If you want a clue about what the inside of my head looks like....

 I went for a lovely walk around the camp in the breezy fall weather.

A room full of scrapbookers.

I look forward to this weekend all year long. Knowing that it's coming makes me happy, being here makes me happy, and adding the work that I get done here to my books will make me happy.

A brief break from happy things

This weekend was the first of two scrapbooking retreats that I attend in a row. Something happened this weekend that I don't recall ever happening before at any of the multiple retreats a year that I've gone to over the last nine or ten years.

Political conversation.

 Not just once. Several times. In various groups of people. And always mainly about the Orwelliffically-named Affordable Care Act.

To me this is more proof that, unlike other government actions and overreaches, this one is hitting real people where they live. When a bunch of middle class, mid-western women--who seem far more interested in TV shows and pop music than politics--who are on a getaway weekend to indulge in a hobby, are so bothered by what their government is doing that it keeps coming up, something is wrong.


Very, very wrong.

Happy things #19

 There are two happy things here.

The one that I intended to capture was all of my stuff ready to go for  the first of my two my scrapbooking retreats. Each fall, I attend retreats two weekends in a row. I look forward so much to the time with my friends and the chance to get some work done on my scrapbooks. (And this weekend, the retreat is at a bed & breakfast, and the hubby joins me, too.)

The second happy thing is the cat. She just rejoined the family after spending over a month living in the basement after some fairly traumatic treatment after a fight. (She is still partially bald and has a wound that hasn't completely healed.) She is friendlier than she has been in years, and seems to enjoy being around people again.

And she still climbs on top of whatever is on the floor.

You just have to laugh

I discovered something this weekend while I was scrapbooking. There is something very therapeutic about making a nice layout with beautiful paper for pictures of stressful events.

Very few people knew how hard this summer was for me. There were all kinds of stresses, but chief among them were the constant negative surprises with our new house. Each new discovery added to the financial, time, and health-related strains. For a variety of reasons I felt the need to keep a calm facade and not to let on how close I was feeling to the edge of what I could handle.

This past weekend I had planned to scrapbook wedding pictures, but various circumstances led to me scrapping other photos from this summer, and especially those of the house problems and the resulting demolition and work. I wasn't really looking forward to working with those pictures. First off, they are mostly of ugliness: mold, demolition, lathe, weeds, green board, and, did I mention, mold. And further, they depicted a really low point for me. But as I sorted through the stack and got ready to work with them I was cheered, partially by the fact that they were in the past, and partially by the reminder of all of the people who worked so hard on our house.

Our sons ( 2, 3) were amazing. They worked hard for months. I have tons of pictures of Bethany, hair tied up, sweaty and dirty or covered with paint. I have pictures of Evan working in almost every room of the house, doing anything that needed to be done. We have pictures of the best neighbors in the world working both inside and outside of the house, and of other friends helping out, too.

So I pulled out some of my favorites of the new paper I bought, and a few old favorites, too. And I made some of my favorite layouts in a long time with those pictures. At one point I was actually wiggling in my chair with glee over one of the layouts because it was such fun. And looking back through the pictures with the boys today I feel like I left a lot of that stress on those pages.

The countdown

In less than 40 hours I'm leaving for my first of two fall scrapbooking retreats. I've been sorting through things and getting organized, but I still have a lot to do. My packing is complicated by the fact that I'm packing for two. All of Bethany's scrapping supplies are still here, and she will be going directly from Wisconsin to the camp. So I'm bringing tools, albums, paper, bedding, etc., for two.

Oh, yeah. Snacks, too. Guess I need to squeeze in a Target run tomorrow.

It's going to be a great weekend. I get to spend it with my daughter and a couple of my dearest friends. I get to get back to one of my favorite hobbies, which I have not indulged in since the retreat last fall. And I get to scrap again next weekend.

Okay, so I didn't make it back yesterday

It's been a busy weekend. Sauerkraut, out-of-town guests, church, birthday party.

Tonight I ordered another 600+ photos from Snapfish, so between this order and the last I have almost 1300 photos to scrapbook from the last year. Of course, almost half of those are wedding.

I think it's a good thing that I have two scrapbooking retreats coming up. I can't wait. I hope my pictures make it in time for the first one!

Giveaway--I want it

The Obsessed with Scrapbooking blog is giving some cool stuff away to celebrate 1 million hits.

I didn't even know that the Cricut Gypsy existed 15 minutes ago, and now I'm dying to have one.

Back from scrapping

I had a great time at the scrapbooking retreat. I completed over 50 pages and had a nice visit with my mom and my friend Lori. I also enjoyed getting to know another friends from church better.

This is going to be a whirlwind week. Things just keep piling on to my schedule.

A good day

Today was a good day, even though I did almost nothing productive. Okay, yeah, I scrapbooked eight pages and wrote a book review for one of my reading challenges. Productive, I suppose, but not the most practical way to spend a Saturday.

After I came home from a hard day of scrappin', the boys made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen.
Ah, yes. Life is good.

I should never have gone to etsy

While browsing all of the lovely, quirky, adorable, or baffling hand-crafted items on etsy, I made a dangerous discovery. My favorite designer of scrapbooking paper also designs fabric.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Hold me back.

Scrapping haven

I've been making plans to turn my office into a combination scrapbooking room/office. I've been looking at storage options and trying to figure out how I could configure things. Now that we're thinking about moving, it may not happen in this house, but I want a workable srapbooking area in my next house it not here.

So, I've been looking at ideas on line. This page has lots of different rooms. I love this one, although my color choices would be different. I would probably go with a beach-y color scheme. Here are some more.

I have a feeling when It comes down to it and I finally get to set up my scrapping space, I'll probably give Emily a call. She has the organizing gift. I seem to be missing that gene.

Scraps of time

It seems like I'm always trying to grab on to the extra little pieces of time to do the things I want to do, but twice a year I set aside a whole weekend just to have fun. So I'm leaving tomorrow morning with two friends to go scrapbook for almost three days.

I love the order that scrapbooking brings to my photos and my memories. I love the creative outlet. I've looked at digital scrapbooking options, but I love the feeling of the components and playing with the paper, moving things around to fit them on the page and tell the story. I love to write about the people and the places and the memories they bring.

So I'll drink coffee, eat snacky food, talk, laugh, cry, and have a really good time. And I'll come home feeling like I've taken a few more steps out of chaos.

Going scrapbooking!

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That means no computer until Sunday night.

I'll probably start with the shakes in about an hour, but once I get into the scrapbooking groove and remember to relax, all should be fine.

Good times

It's snowing.

I've been scrapbooking since this afternoon.

The Patriots got beat.

Life is good.

Been scrappin'

We've started scrapbooking at Redeemer a couple of Saturdays a month. It's been great because it is keeping me in touch with what I'm working on. Even if I only get five or six pages done at a time, it's still progress.

Scrapbooking with other people is good, too, because it's a great way to get ideas. Since we've been doing this, my pages have gotten more interesting.

And it's just plain fun.

Gone scrappin'

My bags are almost packed and I'm almost ready to go.
This weekend I'll be scrapbooking with Bethany and a couple of non-blogging friends at a Y camp in northern Indiana. With the exception of a break Sunday morning to drive home for church I'll be buried in photos and scraps of paper all weekend. Well, and maybe we'll take the break or two to walk in the woods or play tetherball.

This is how behind I am

I went to my Snapfish account today because I want to be really organized for my scrapbooking retreat in November, which is one of the highlights of my fall.

Oh boy.

I have not uploaded photos since last Labor Day weekend. I have an entire year of photos to upload. How on earth did I let a year go by without doing this? This order could really cut into my Starbuck's budget for the next few months!

I'm trying not to get too bogged down in looking at pictures, but it has been quite a year! And I can't believe how much all of the kids have changed. So I may have to share a few favorites, such as this one of my mom and step-dad with my brother on his fortieth birthday.


Or maybe this one of my hubby, also taken at Buca.
Or maybe this one of my kids and sweet nieces from Symphony on the Prairie this year:

Photo Hunt: Hobby

I wasn't sure which hobby I should use. I suppose I could use some of my gravestone photos for genealogy. I have a few pictures of us dancing. There are pictures of me reading, which belongs more in the same category as breathing, as far as I'm concerned. So I picked scrapbooking.

This is a picture of my kitchen table, taken over for a weekend of scrapping.

My day of rest

This has been a really stressful week, and next week isn't looking a whole lot better. So for today I am escaping to the wonderful world of photographs and beautiful papers.

Gone scrapbookin'.