2010 Is In The Books

Last page of 2010

Multilingual word art by Jenn Lindsey

Okay, 2010 is actually ready for proofreading. I proofread 2007 on my own and David’s hair stood on end with a cardinal sin typo on New Year’s Day! Big Boy Restaurant, where we had Brunch, is NOT Big Boy’s, never has been, never will be and boy I’m glad we were already married when he read that! There is a lot of stress being married to a professional writer!

The truth is I cringed when I read it after the book came in and realized I missed that one. So from now on, David gets to proofread BEFORE I send the books to Inkubook. He does that so much better than I do. It’s part of his job, along withdrawing details out of people, and an area where I scored quite poorly when I tested for proofreading for a placement agency. I accept that I am a put together the big picture and make sure the details get done person, but not a go over things with a fine tooth comb after they’re done person. It takes people like me AND people like David as well as people like many others to make a project happen, whether it’s in the business or personal world. I make the scrapbooks look really good, David adds that element that makes them great! That’s not me selling myself short, I could have easily said I make them great, he makes them even greater, but I’m not in the need of ego affirmation this morning.

Now, the goal was to have 2010 done by the end of January. Remember, “this or something better.” The something better was all of my class work caught up AND the 2010 pages done. It took 20 days to do that. So that last page is a pretty cool page for a quiet night at home, huh? The champagne glasses and new year circle are from an elements pack I picked up as a freebie, but it had no TOU and no designer name on the preview. The glasses are kinda sorta similar to the ones we drank our Asti from, so they really did fit with the evening.

So, I was a bit of a scrapping fool yesterday, finishing up 2010 and finishing the Progressive Scrap at the studio.

Credits: Thinking of You collab by the Studio Designers,

word art by Digitalegacies Designs

That is not quite the same layout I did for the progressive. I moved a few things, deleted some. I am learning how to cluster and getting better, but still in the progressive scraps I end up with an element or two that doesn’t quite fit the photos or that I just really don’t care for. I’ll hardly ever use a button in a page that will make it to the printing stage. I just don’t care for buttons. I also put away and go back to progressive layouts to see if they look less cluttered to me. If it’s too cluttery, I start taking things out. You can see the actual progressive version of this layout here.

In celebration of starting the 2011 scrapping with that layout, I want to share the word art! Yes, you recognize the line I loved so much from the Hallmark commercials. Of course, that’s why I can’t sell the word art, but I want to give it away anyway.

I will, for the use of that line, remind everyone that the perfect card can say everything you can’t grab the words to write or even say. I have a huge box of greeting cards. I save them. Funny, that when we cleaned out my Great-Grandmother’s house, she had a box of cards she saved and she had her mother’s cards too. Grandma came into keeping those two boxes and a box of her own! I went through those cards, looking at the way the fronts had changed and also the way the messages changed a little, but the meaning was still the same, “you mean something special to me.” I didn’t keep all the cards from Grandma’s, but I did keep a few of the very old ones to scan and a few special ones I did keep, like Papa’s first anniversary card to Grandma after he got home from the war and a sweetly mushy Mother’s Day card with “Janet” written in print that said my Mom was about six or seven. Yeah, that’s another sappy Hallmark commercial, isn’t it? That one choked me up too. That was because I saw some old cards my Dad kept that I gave him too!

So, here’s the free word art:

Click on preview to go to download
Password is Hallmark

This will be my last day for super-scrapping for a while. I needed a couple days away from XML before I dig in to studying for our first test, due turned in by next Sunday. I did a little better than I expected on that chapter I got the extension for and a few encouraging notes from my instructor too. I’m SO not the “tough love” type, but encourage me and I’ll work extra hard not to let either one of us down.

This week will be studying for that test and getting on the next chapter in imaging. I also have to call the neurosurgeon’s office to get an update on progress with the insurance on my next MRI and David and I are going to tour a…..”extended stay physical therapy recovery center.” It’s a nursing home. If I have back surgery, I’ll be discharged from the hospital and go to a nursing home for convalescence before I go home. Tori didn’t like me saying I was going to be in a nursing home. Not sure if that’s because her experience with a nursing home is with her great grandmother and Grandma was having memory issues. Grandma also passed away in a nursing home and she was in the average age in her hall at 84. Tori refuses to see “her Nana” that way. We were on speaker phone and my brother broke in with the explanation, so I wonder if it was Tori or Dave that had the problem with the wording. Hmmm…

Anyway, suffice to say it’s a busy week coming up. Then it’s Spring Break at school which will give me a chance to get ahead in my class work. For today, I have a few more pages I want to work on. But for now, my second cup of Sunday coffee is done and it’s time to clothe my lazy butt!