The Creative Process

I've been doing my Project 365 as a scrapbooked diary for a few years now. I do the layouts with the daily journal entries and an assortment of photos, clip art, memes, cartoons and scrapbook elements. NFL playoff scores in early 2015 was the first appearance of the character I knew in my mind as "the Foxborough Fox." The fox was included three times in 2015 by the Pats' post season scores finishing sitting on a football near a “We’re #1” banner and the Super Bowl score.

As the Patriots started into the playoffs last January the Fox was back with the Patriots scores. I decided to have some fun with New England promotional items from the web. In one of those 2016 playoff results pics he's holding a Tom Brady doll and his name changed and his identity formed. He became Brady the Patriots fan and the image of a boy under ten years old. Giving him a personality gave me direction for molding him to be more than just a logo element. The Foxborough Fox was the same expression holding a Patriots sign. Brady is a superfan with all of his football fan stuff and the exuberance and team loyalty of a child.

I'll make a note of a couple things at this point. First off I'm creative and artistic but a different kind of creative and artistic than someone who sets pencil to paper and draws cute animals. My dad would always draw horses when I was a kid. It was just something he doodled. Every time I tried to draw a horse it looked like a dinosaur. I've been doing creative things for a half a century now and if I i try to draw a horse it still looks like a dinosaur… like a five-year-old trying to draw a horse, dinosaur. But I do well manipulating images. The Foxborough Fox is an element from a kit called Falling 4 U by Keystone Scraps.

The other thing is that I absolutely adore is watching young kids at sporting events and the unconditional love and loyalty they have for their favorite teams and players. So it's not a surprise that I would find an element that I really like and start manipulating that to turn it into it the character of an eight-year-old boy.

As this your started, I made the conscious decision to follow my #2 sport more closely and was therefore, even as the baseball season was ending, making a point of paying attention to MY favorite two teams. Brady was going to present both the Patriots and Lions scores every week. I started thinking, or may be overthinking but that's what I do, that Brady needed a buddy to watch football with and maybe it would be a good idea if his buddy was a Lions fan. So the search for Brady's best friend began. I found Brady’s BFF in At The Zoo by Mags Graphics.

As the season went on the characters developed, their friendship developed and the entire story of Brady and Ford formed and is still forming. For me it's just fun. “Knowing” the story of the week adds to creating the scrapbook vignette.

Brady and Ford are eight-year-olds in Toledo. They are 3rd graders in the Toledo Public School system. They live in the same neighborhood, just a few houses apart and are best friends.

Brady is an only child. His parents were originally from New England and they moved to Toledo when Brady's mom had a great job offer. Brady's whole family are Patriots fans and they get the NFL Sunday Ticket so they can see the Patriots games every week. Ford and Brady watch football games together at one of their houses. They often go to Ford’s house for the Lions games and Brady's house for the Patriots games.

Ford's dad works in Michigan and his mom works part time but she’s home in the afternoon when Ford gets home from school. The boys spend weekday afternoons at Ford's house. Ford has a big brother in college and a high school senior sister but, "she doesn't like football so she doesn't matter anyway."

That's pretty much the whole story right now. It grows as it needs to for the single frame cartoons with the football scores. David helped me develop Ford's family with Ford being his parents pleasant surprise baby. This came from a discussion that we had because he was surprised that my characters went to Toledo Public Schools. But they had to go to TPS because it was snowing on the Sunday that the network decided they weren't going to show the Lions game. I needed a reason for a snow sculpture. LOL

Week 16 was great fun for Brady who watched the game with his cousins when they were back East for the holidays.

It was a little rougher for Ford. No school meant he got to stay up to watch Monday Night Football but the Lions lost.

The creative process can be a never ending source of imagination and fun!

Goals and Projects For 2014

BRRR… I’m cold. It’s cold outside and we have a drafty door near where I’m sitting. But, I feel otherwise good and not at all sick. 2013 ends better than 2012 did and it promises a better January 1 for 2014!

As I say goodbye to 2013 it’s time to set up my goals and projects for 2014. Looking over 2013’s goals and projects I can say that I’m pleased with how well I did in some areas and I know I definitely disappointed myself in some. In some areas I nailed the “or something better.”

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Clean and Organize Project:

Well, last year I dropped the White Tornado idea for 2013 and well, I must say we did a good job of not moving forward on that front. Looking forward now however, I’m less mobile and more clumsy and that makes everyday things more out of reach and clutter more dangerous. In the first couple months of 2014 I’ll be researching and asking questions. After suggestions from friends (hi Edna!) and other family members I’m going to look into avenues for daily living assistance for people with disabilities. I understand there are even people who will help with serious cleaning and organizing a more accessible house.

Like I said research first. I need to find out what assistance I can get, if I am an eligible candidate for disability assistance and how much it will cost/if I can afford it. I figure initially there will be a lot of work to get our house truly organized and safe, then maybe just someone who can help tidy up once a week or so. We’ll see; this is entirely new territory for me. I’ll talk to my doctor too to see if he has any suggestions.

One thing that I must get done is the door jamb on the entryway to the kitchen from the dining room has to come out. There is snuggly enough space to drive the power chair through but if the jamb is removed it will give an extra inch. In all the years David’s been here there’s never been a door there, so the door jamb won’t be missed. A mid-December call to 911 to come pick me up off the kitchen floor because my leg just quit while I was hobbling back from the bathroom made me decide that I had to be able to use the chair in the kitchen. I also want to see about a couple more grab bars in the hallway to the downstairs bathroom, where the chair doesn’t fit at all and I have to “walk.”


Blog Goals:

Blog more regularly?? I did the consolidation in the fall putting all my blogs on The Chronicles of Nani so I have plenty of material for a healthy blog, I just need to get my head in the right place. Counseling is helping; I’m getting g better. I also think that if I can get the help to get the house up to safer and more comfortable it will help too. I can’t let my mental health depend on that right now though since I don’t know for sure that I can get or afford that help! Still, I’ve set some 2014 goals with my counselor and I feel good about my prospects. I want it and I believe it will work, 75% of the battle.

So, with my head and heart in a better place, and getting better day by day, I should be able to commit myself to The Chronicles better. I want to blog a minimum of twice a week. I’m also going to post at least one Tweet a day.


Reading Goals:

This is one place I am very pleased with my numbers for 2013. My goal was to read 2 books a month with a short book review on The Chronicles of Nani. I read 27 books with reviews here in 2013! Waiting in doctors' offices gets a nod for help with that one, but so does reading before bed or an afternoon nap.

For 2014, I’m keeping that goal of 2 books a month with book reviews here.


Health and Wellness:

Of course the January Detox starts January 2, or whichever day I can get out of the house after the snow to stock up on some better groceries. With decreased mobility and depression came some bad eating habits and less movement! I don’t try to lose in December; I just try to not gain any weight or at least very little. This November and December was a fail! An emotional eater in distress, I gained enough to feel uncomfortable emotionally and physically. I do start January with a bunch of containers of my own homemade vegetable soup in the freezer, a very recent Lean Cuisine sale where David stocked me up and a week’s worth of Greek yogurt in the fridge. I need to get out to the produce market.

I want to lose at least 20 pounds by June.

In physical health and wellness goals, I will have my first round of epidural steroids for my lower back next week. I’m not going to hide that I’m as nervous as can be. I remember the worst part of spinal taps I got when I was 18 was feeling those needles when I couldn’t see what was going on. Numb or not it was agonizing. For this procedure I can’t take the bus because I can’t go home alone, David has to be there because I get IV funny juice. Continued pain is the only prospect I like less! Hopefully the injections will help me get up from a sitting position better and give me a little light exercise ability.


Scrapbooking:

The idea of scrapping the current month instead of trying to catchup a year at a time went brilliantly! Every folder for January and February was completed during these months in 2013! Now those are the months I take fewer pictures, but I’ll be catching up some of the December and November during those months this year while I’m keeping 2014 up to date.

I did keep a tally of the pages I completed each month with my goal of averaging a layout a day. In 2013 I finished 484 scrapbook pages with my record month being July (When the ramp was still new for discovering all the places I could go and it was hot anyway) I did 66 layouts in July!

In this too my goal shall remain the same; average a page a day with a tally kept.


Project 365:

Now here was a fail this year. I figured out that where I completed 2012 but fell behind and dropped 2013 was in the randomness. 2012 was just a line or two written about the day and a layout with those thoughts each week. 2013 was a structured “writing assignment” that had to be written and scrapped every week with pre-assigned topics for each week. I like a challenge, but hobbies are supposed to be fun and as challenging as I want them to be on any day. This year my Project 52 will be “2014: That’s So Random!” I’m going to do a page a week. It might be a journaling page, or a quote every day, a picture a day, a mix of ideas each day or just a layout of a highlight event for the week. I won’t know until the week is under way what it’ll be.

We’ll see how that works!


Employment Goal:

Part of working toward working for me in 2013 was volunteering. Volunteering means networking and earning some current references who have worked with me in a professional setting. As the year was winding down I had some wonderful ego-building surprises as a result of volunteer work that have pushed me into leadership and more detailed work. That means that I not only feel like I have a lot to offer even with wheels, but I’m perceived as having a lot to offer by other professionals. I can’t even express how good that feels and how much it does for my confidence!

So my goals for employment this year are to keep doing what I’ve been doing, shoring up my resume presentation and add at least a few professional items to my wardrobe. Ideally it would be great to land something part time and either have that go full time or move on to a full time placement from there. I know it’d be best to build my stamina rather than jump into 40+ hours a week right off the bat. I want, no need, to feel I’m making a valuable contribution at work and to the home income too.

And there is my plan for 2014. 

 Of course, this or something better!

The Spice of Nani

Daily Random

I have commitment issues. Yes, the whole love and marriage thing happened later in life for me and I say that’s commitment issues, but I say that jokingly. That wasn’t a problem committing; that was me staying committed to myself and not settling. Maybe that’s what the current issue is.

I am desperately and probably irrevocably behind on this year’s 365/52 project. After my success last year journaling a few lines every day and scrapping a page for each week I thought writing and scrapping a page a week on different topics would be easy. Not so. It’s been a good year for other goals I’ve wanted to accomplish, but not with the 52 topix idea.

I wondered what made writing 1-3 sentences about whatever in my life every day easy to keep up with that writing a paragraph about an assigned topic every week difficult. That’s easy; randomness! In 2010 I tried photographing something coffee every day. The photos were fun and the pages interesting, but that interest dwindled after about May. Again coffee every day while fun was not random. Real life is random. No matter how hard we may try to structure, it’s the random things we don’t expect that make it interesting.

I am putting away the 52 topix idea. I think I may use those layouts that I have done with the completed coffee layouts from 2010 and the completed layouts from the unfinished Patch 365 from 2009 and add some pages to make a “Nani’s Unfinished Symphony” book. Hmmm, maybe I’ll do it in a softcover and leave some blank pages to add some other unfinished things Smash-style and make it a multimedia art thing. Or maybe I’ll just get the pages printed and assemble it traditional scrap-style. I’ll give this some thought.

What I started doing on August first is adding an image a day to a folder called “Daily OPs.” (Other people's, places, possibilities, etc...)  I’ve done an image search for whatever flashes into my mind at the time and choose an image that inspires me or strikes my fancy on that day at that time. I’m not 100% sure where I’m going with this yet, but maybe for next year I’ll mix up photos I take, a few lines of journaling and a random image to suit my mood each day, any or all of them. I’ve got a few months to decide on next year’s project.


Life With Marco

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow since Marco came home. He has every bit the spunk Kaline did as a kitten, unfortunately Kaline doesn’t remember being that kitten! But the growling and hissing is already down and the girls are getting somewhat used to him and he to them. The interaction is interesting. Kaline and Carla will get close enough to give him a good sniff when he’s tired. They want nothing to do with him when he’s frisking around the house. When he runs into Carla’s face or jumps on Kaline’s back, that’s when he gets hissed at or swatted, but when he’s mellowed out they’ll ignore him or even let him get close! Believe me, that’s progress in cat relations after only two weeks!

Now he has some habits I love him to let go of including human leg climbing. He attached himself to jeans and climbs up all the way to the shoulder if he can. He usually doesn’t get that chance because in order to do it, he has to anchor his sharp claws into the legs he’s climbing. For David that’s painful and for me, with thinner fabric in pants, it’s awful! My legs and even my chest, to a little lesser degree, look like I’ve beet pelted with buckshot! I look positively broken out from all the little red-mark puncture wounds!

We got the kitten package for Marco that includes all his shots, healthy kitten checkups and his neutering. He gets 2 claw-trimmings in the package too. We decided not do it on his first visit because he wasn’t jumping yet and was climbing to get around. On Kaline’s birthday everyone goes to the vet, I know crappy birthday present, but they’ll get a salmon and crab party that night. Carla and Kaline will get their annual checkups and shots and rest assured Marco will be getting his first claw trimming!


The Cloud Is Raining On My Creative Parade

I was visiting Miss Edna’s Place where Edna mentioned her displeasure with Adobe and their new “Creative Cloud.”  You essentially lease your software instead of owning it. You pay a monthly fee to have the software and updates are automatic instead of buying an upgrade when a new version comes out, just give them your credit card number and they’ll automatically take out the charge every month. If you don’t sign on and let the license be updated monthly on your software, it just quits working. I’ve known about it for a while and I’m beyond “not happy” about it.

I was actually trying to find out if I could buy an additional license for the software I have. It comes with 2 which is one each for David and me, but I wanted to put it on a smaller laptop for travelling. I can’t add a license to PS CS5, but I could get the Cloud and pay for three a month. I did the math and since two licenses came with the old way of doing it and figuring in a student discount, after 2 years I’d have paid for the software and it’s all just monthly profit for Adobe after that.

Photographylife.com review of Creative Cloud

I did find out that I can just keep my Photoshop CS5 but they won’t be updating it. Conceivably that means it won’t work with Windows 9 or 10 someday. Maybe they’ll have changed their ways by then and the average consumer will have a choice of the Creative Cloud or just buying the software. Or maybe there will be a decent competitor with a better offer.

Football, Flora and a Freebie

Congratulations to the New England Patriots for their 45-10 victory over the Denver Broncos! Tom Brady tied the record for most touchdown passes in a playoff game. The Pats scored early…then often. Now it’s onward and keep winning!

The Lions’ loss last week means that I won’t be tested in the Super Bowl. Remember when I said that I was sure I’d cheer for the Braves against the Reds in the 1995 National League Championship Series, but found out that I just couldn’t do it? Well, I always say that I took the Patriots as my football team because it was in my wedding vows to take David’s football team. Keeping my baseball teams was in the pre-nup! I guess it would be the ultimate test of my loyalty for the Lions and Patriots to face each other in the biggest sports event of the year, but it’s not to happen this year. I wonder, if it happens and I find myself unable to cheer against the team I grew up with, is that grounds to end the marriage??

I’m not as passionate about football as I am about baseball, so I think I’ll be okay, if it ever happens.

That plant was a surprise that David brought out of Giant Eagle in Cleveland when we were there for a medical appointment for me. It’s a 2-hour drive and I can only drive just over an hour before I get incredible pain in my right hamstring, so David has to drive me. I try to schedule things on his regular days off so he doesn’t have to shuffle his schedule. So, he drives, takes me to my favorite restaurant for lunch and that day he stopped at Giant Eagle to get me a couple packages of Butterfly Bakery sugar free Chocolate muffins. The selection of Butterfly Bakery products in Toledo is very limited and I’m especially fond of the chocolate muffins. I waited in the car while he ran in to the store. He came out with the “pumpkin flower.” He said it had my name written all over the terracotta pumpkin bowl!

Now a question: Does anyone reading know what kind of plant it is? There was no label to tell me! It’s a beautiful plant, but I’m not sure what to do to take care of it. Since it came home in November, all the original flowers dried up. Many of them fell off on their own and others I brushed my hand on to knock them off. I keep it watered and it has a place in the window in the kitchen annex, so it gets Northern exposure. There are a couple of new flowers and new leaves, so I’m not doing anything totally wrong. I’d just like to know what kind of plant it is!



Project 365…366 Templates

I did two sets of templates that I sold in my Scrap Bird store in 2009, plus a blog freebie that went with the set. Templates for 9 weeks of project 365 or templates that will accommodate 63 photos of events you’d like to scrap. For 2012, I’m rereleasing those templates as freebies! On each of the remaining Sundays in January, I’ll release three templates from the set, culminating in a final freebie on my half birthday, January 29.

Here is the set for this week:

Click preview to download

I hope you all have a great Sunday. Thanks for stopping by!

Just A Little Nuts

That’s me right now! I only have my final exam left in my class this semester. I think the final project wrapped up pretty nice. David caught a couple of typos this morning and now I’m ready to bundle it and turn it in. The official launch of Journal Camp, well, the pre-camp meeting anyway, will be posted in just a couple of hours. I’m really hoping to be back to normal blogging soon. The end of the semester is tough no matter how many classes because you take the class load that works with your life-load! Next semester, summer, I’m not in any graded classes because I’m devoting that to prep for the Network+ exam. Then 2 classes in the fall with hopefully a part-time entry level networking job. Wish me luck!

My wonderful honey brought me home my long lost and beloved Wildly Cherry M&Ms!!! I thought they’d never bring them back! He called me when he first hem so I could find them at the Kroger near us, where I was shopping the day I got the picture of the Avatar cupcakes for him. Alas, they didn’t have them at out Kroger and he stopped there on the way home from Paws Poker yesterday and brought me some!

By the way, David did make it to the final round, but didn’t finish in the money, but he felt good about how he played and it made a nice donation to Paws and Whiskers. After making it to the finals last time, I didn’t go this time. I found out that, while I refuse to lose on purpose, I get bored when I’m not playing with friends or at least with fun talk at the table. So I stayed home and scrapped. I did catch-up one more week of Java 365!

Vacation Week Java!
Credits: template by MAH Designs,
kit Sunset Beach by MAH Designs

I’ve been busting my scholarly butt on the final project this week, so tomorrow is going to be Nani-Day. Some pain kept me from biking so much last week. Too much sitting in front of school stuff made me stiff, I think! So, I’m going to get back to biking tomorrow and then go out to the fruit and veggie market. I’ve been thinking of making vegetable stew.

Now, I’m thinking a night cap Caribou K-Cup and wait for hubby to come home before sleepy time!

Nani Updateables

Mug Shot Inventory

Greetings morning to all! Life in general is keeping me pretty busy right now and I’m trying to get myself organized! Part of that organization is that The Monday Mug Shot will be “Best ofs” for a few weeks. I’ve been writing the Mug Shot most Mondays since mid 2007, that’s a lot of mugs! Oh, I have tons more I haven’t written about, but right now I have limited display space at home too, so they aren’t all unpacked, or unrepacked. The point is, I need to make a list of all the mugs I’ve done so I know what ones are stories yet to be told! 2008-2009 ones on BlogSpot are easy. I just hit the mugshot tag in the right column and I’m good to go. The earlier ones on Yahoo are a bit more of a challenge because they have no tags in the archives and you have to go through the whole history to find them. I may use the full chronicles archive on my EDH and run a search. That will still take time. Since I have school and other duties I have to keep up too, the mug shot inventory won’t be a one day and done thing. I hope you don’t mind the oldies!


Journal Camp

I have the rough drafts of the “lessons” for all 5 weeks of journal camp complete! Now I have to edit, prepare any other necessary example layouts and freebies! The layout prizes will be from the Digitalegacies Catalogue that used to be at Scrap Bird. Remember that I will not turn things from my store into freebies, because it’s not fair to others who have paid for them or won them in some other way, but offering them as the random gifts at Journal Camp is okay. I’m going to offer them in sets of two or three items from the store at a time. The freebies will all be new items and I am busy creating them right now. I’m also planning to create a logo and blinkie for Journal Camp and I’ll offer a thank you gift for anyone that wears it on their blog or in forums!


LOTW at the Studio

My page, Maybury, created with At The Park by Nibbles Skribbles was selected as the Layout of the Week at the studio!

Credit: At The Park by Nibbles Skribbles

Imagine my reaction as I was reading the newsletter and I see my layout! Double cool because it was the first Nibbles Skribbles kit I’ve officially worked with as a CT! There is a gift certificate prize that goes with the selection. I don’t know if CT members are eligible for the prize, but it’s so cool to be selected!

The journaling style I used on this one is “letter-style,” talking to the person in the pictures, in this case, Rina when she was 10. That is a style we’ll talk about at Journal Camp too! :)

While I’m showing off my LOTW done with a Nibbles Skribbles kit, I’ll mention that I have two new kits by NS that I’m working with right now (busy, busy, busy) and The Studio is dedicating a week to celebrating spring! That is SO my kind of party! There is a progressive scrap, which I’m going to try to eke out a few minutes a morning to keep up with to work on my clustering, chats every night and some other fun challenges, including the avatar challenge, hosted by Manda, Nibbles Skribbles! The challenge is to renew your avatar by dusting off an old pic of yourself. The picture has to be half your current age or younger! This is me in 1972:

Credit: Butterflies and Blossoms by Nibbles Skribbles

Need More Coffee…

Credits: I Love You A Latte by Double Dutch Designs,
P365 template by Heavenly Scraps

They stopped doing the photos Project 52 at My Life and Scrap, but they are doing it at The Studio, which is home since Digital Freebies pretty much dried up, after being in the SASy Lady contest in 2008, I know and love the girls there anyway! It is a lot easier to keep up with a single-layout weekly challenge than going it on my own, as I’m still plugging away at the layouts for Patch 365 last year. I have the photos and the journaling in folders. I just need to assemble the layouts!

Oh, and I DID get another cup of coffee too, but it was a fun heading for the layout! It’s gray and gloomy and there’s just a tiny chill in the air in Toledo today. That is a weather mood setter for coffee. I brewed a pot with a regular amount of Columbian for a strong brew, a half-teaspoon of caramel popcorn seasoning and a half-teaspoon of fresh ground cinnamon. It made a wonderful pot of coffee with a robust body mellowed by a hint of sweetness and spicy flavor. I poured a cup with Coffeemate and Splenda, good stuff! Yeah, I love my coffee.


Little milestones
Every Monday, I program my exercise goal into my recumbent bike. The higher the level, the more resistance which stretches my back better, but it’s harder on my knee, so I set a time goal for the week and a resistance level that will work my back well. Then I try to reach that cumulative time goal for the week, allowing myself to stop when my knee starts hurting. Now remember I mentioned having added the arm work to the routine too. I think that in some aspects makes the workout a little more intense, but it also creates a diversion form concentrating on my knee. Yesterday, while I was on the bike, the computer stopped. For the first time since I’ve started doing the weekly goals, back in September when my back got bad after therapy sessions, I reached ZERO! The computer stopped and said “check my stats” because I was done! YAY NANI!

I did 30 minutes at level 6 and went 5.3 miles. That may not sound like a lot, but remember, my knee is usually begging for a break after grocery shopping and level 6 is pretty intense. The routine I chose changes from lighter to heavier resistance, so some days are a little tougher than others. I figure I won’t change the goal for a couple of weeks and let myself be level there for a while and then add another ten minutes.



Okay, back to school!

Coloring Outside The Lines Is COOL!

Big announcement : I’m a Skribbler! YAY!!

If you’re scratching your head, Skribbler, with a K, is a member of Nibbles Skribbles creative team! I’m SO looking forward to working with Manda’s kits!

Things have slowed down on the other creative teams I’m on and I have really had the itch to do some serious promoting for some new-to-me designers. You’ve seen my work with Morning Mocha, Nibbles Skribbles' collab with Little Red Scraps and now, Nibbles Scribbles is selling at The Studio!

Manda’s work is also available at Digital Scrap Ink, which is a new site for me too. I just registered there, so I haven’t posted anything yet, but this is scheduled to be a stay-at-home, rainy weekend, so I’ll have some time to settle in. It’s also going to be a weekend with some scrapping time! I have the latest from Nibbles Skribbles, At The Park!

I have some ideas cooking in my head for this kit! I have great old pictures at the park when Tori and Rina were little. We were big time playscape and playground connoisseurs when they were under ten sand we all lived close to each other in Michigan! Now, they are half way to 16 and we usually find a way to get to a Starbucks when we get together. I’m proud to say I got them started on that with Starbucks steamers when they were about 4. While “cappuccino” for me as a kid was Noni’s drink of vanilla ice cream and a spoon of espresso in a demitasse, the version of kid cappuccino I introduced to the girls was steamed milk with a flavor shot. Rina really liked vanilla and Tori enjoyed cinnamon. They both liked caramel. So I could scrap the girls with At The Park AND Morning Mocha!

I’m also thinking of a perfect reflection page for my own inner child as one of those extra pages I’ve talked about before. We’ll see what I unleash tomorrow!

In a recent The Studio newsletter, it was announced that Nibbles Skribbles had joined the team of designers and Manda gave this wonderful gift to the subscribers:

I was working on a layout with it and thinking about the fact that I’d seen a CT call at The Studio, and stopped mid-layout to send my application. Then I finished this:

redits: Springtime Fun by Nibbles Skribbles,
March10 Template by Kimberkatt Scraps
Fonts: Segoe Print, Going Nuts

I’m scrapping September 2007 now! Remember I started the year with the start of the year 2007. Woo hoo! I have three current pages that I have in folders, so I’m keeping up with 2010 too. Doing well with the scrapping goal!


I’m also keeping up with my Project 365! This week’s layout includes a couple of shots of the treasures from Grandma’s house.

Credits: Cafe by Skrapper Digitals,
template Project 365 template by Sus Designs

The task of cleaning out Grandma’s house and preparing it for sale is a bit daunting. The treasure we’re finding though! I have a couple of boxes FULL of old photos. Photoblog this week was one of my Great-Grandmother punching the time clock at work and I have a totally sweet one of Grandma and Papa kissing. It’s dated 1944, but before they were married! I would think at that time, it was probably a little bit of a scandalous photo! I also found the military permission note for Papa to send Grandma a locket dated 1943, probably that locket I brought home after her funeral. I even found the receipt from the hospital when my Mom was born. Grandma was in the hospital 9 days and it cost under $90 for the visit, no insurance, medications and tests included in that figure. Of course, in 1945 there wasn’t advertising for prescription drugs and doctors didn’t have to drive BMWs. Maybe I should scan that receipt and send it to Washington?

In addition to scrapping this weekend, I’m going to spend a few hours working on the Journal Camp material. I figure I’ll be ready to schedule the dates and promote the blog-camp by the end of next week. I’m planning lessons, freebies and participation bonuses too. I think it’ll be fun!

Okay, I’m finishing this post now so I can get an early start on the scrapoliday weekend, David has been restless with a nasty cold, which probably means I’m next. I think he fell asleep in front of the basketball game and I want to make sure he gets to bed too.

Links:
Nibbles Skribbles Site
Nibbles Skribbles store at The Studio
Nibbles Skribbles store at Digital Scrap Ink

Better Things

I’m enjoying the turnaround in things lately. I really do believe strongly in the power of positive thinking and it’s held me up again, where could have been brought way down, as it has many times. At it’s simplest staying positive is seeing the “but” in everything, realizing that it really could be worse when it’s bad and being grateful for the good things you still have. I think I might be a bit of a basket case if I hadn’t become somewhat of a master at it.

In the last few weeks, I’ve done poorly on my first test of the semester, had quite a few non-Wife 1500 compliant days and fallen behind n the scrapbook catching-up plan. That’s okay. I crammed that test in the middle of tending to my responsibilities for Grandma. I don’t regret that. Traveling for funerals/memorials and all of the necessary preparation made planning careful eating almost impossible. We even had a family dinner of fried chicken one night in Connecticut. When family is opening their doors to you, you don’t ask to be treated special at dinner. You take the fried skin off the chicken and load up on the asparagus! I don’t regret not being the ugly sister-in-law either.

Things are getting back on the track of organized now. I‘ve been having some major knee and back trauma. That pain is chronic right now and I live with it, but my back muscles have been really weak, so I’m not so up for going to the store. But we do have enough in the way of frozen, boxed and canned stuff that I’ve been able to get back on a solid Wife 1500 menu. I have a vitamin order coming in that will help too. I’m out of my glucosamine and condroitin and I’m adding vitamin C and E with my daily B12. These are all vitamins that increase oxygen, circulation and help to increase muscle strength.

I hope that I can feel up to getting to the grocery store tomorrow, at least for a short trip. I am dying for some fresh fruit and veggies! Specifically I want oranges, bananas, salad and zucchini. Well, okay, I always want zucchini! But I need to get the fixins for Valentines Day too!

No, my calendar isn’t broken. David and I were traveling home on Valentines Day, so we decided to celebrate it this Sunday. I’ll cook our traditional Lovers Shrimp Scampi and I need to make a call to Baskin Robbins to order a mini ice cream cake for dessert. We’ll still get our romantic evening for the holiday. We did share some half-off chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, but roses and shrimp don’t go on a half-off sale, neither do ice cream cakes. I hope I still get my flowers, but the romance is what’s important!

I’m hoping to get my catch-up plan running smoothly again on Saturday while David is working. I’ve still been dong 2007 layouts, but not quite one a day. I have kept up with Java 365 and I’ve been keeping up with them thanks to the Project 365/52 challenges at Digital Scrapbooking Studio and My Life and Scrap. A good challenge is a super way to keep you on top of things!

I haven’t posted my Java layouts since week 3, but I’ve been doing them! Here is the update:

Week 4

Credits: Papers from Morning Mocha collab
by Little Red Scraps and Nibbles Scribbles,
Template Project 365 J2 by Digitalegacies Designs

Week 5

Credits: Cozy Winter by Brenda at Millstream Cottage,
journal mat from Paperscraps Journal Papers by mITSYBELLE,
coffee tag on hook by Eileen Gery, other elements from
Morning Mocha collab by Nibbles Scribbles and Little Red Scraps

 

I just loved the shadow box in Brenda’s kit! I moved just a couple of the dividers and it became a perfect frame for the week!

Week 6

Credits: Kit – January 2010 PDW Color Challenge by Bubbles Babbles,
Template 30 by Sweet Tomato Designs, Font: Lima Bean

Of course even if late, when you see a Digitalegacies template in the credits, like in Week 4, it usually means a freebie. After reading all of my woes today, don’t you think you deserve a freebie?

Click to preview to go to the download.
The password is more-coffee.

As always, I LOVE comments at The Chronicles of Nani and if you use any of Digitalegacies stuff, I’d love to see your work!

Stay tuned to The Chronicles of Nani for an answer to Edna’s query about the black eye I mentioned in a sponsor-post a couple weeks ago and another freebie I’m finishing up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges, Treats and a Gift

Okay, I am so overdue for my first freebie of 2010, huh? Keep reading, that’s coming at the end!


When I take photos, I download them from my camera into folders. Two sets of the photos go onto my EHD on the Mac. One set is simply organized by month to be archived on a DVD when I have 4.7gb ready to burn. The other set is divided into folders for scrap pages. Right now I have master folders for 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. I’m pleased to say that all of the folders in the 2010 folder are highlighted gray, the color code for “page is scrapped.” May through July in the 2007 folder and Thanksgiving-New Year’s Eve in the 2009 folder are highlighted blue, which means “on laptop.” What I’ll do is work on my catch-up work from the 2007 point and do my “scrapping in the now” layouts backwards into 2009 as long as all the 2010 folders are done.

My page-a-day goal still includes doing a 2007 page first, but then I’ll do the 2009 layouts as I can too. This means I need to get some flash drives in the mail! I promised a couple of those camera wielding guests at the reception drives to get copies of their photos and I could be back to July before I know it! We didn’t hire a professional photographer, I just asked everyone who had a camera to bring it and let me have a copy of their pictures, I’ve got a really nice collection to scrap!

There was a speed scrap last night at Designs in Digital and on Monday, Tracy of Ambowife Designs, hosted the first chat scrap at The Studio, formerly Stone Accents Studio. Both challenges were one-photo challenges. Hmph. In all of those folders on my EHD, there are very few with only one picture! I did have one from the holiday season last year with only one and a plan to include some journaling detailing why a sandwich was important enough to scrap!

Well, I decided to use the same photo, journaling and the same kit for that sandwich and do both challenges. Then I’d decide which one I liked better to add to the scrapbook.

Here is the Monday one:

Credits: Kit – Ciao Italia by Darlene Haughin, CU leaves by Voshebnica

Here is Wednesday:

Credits: Kit – Ciao Italia by Darlene Haughin

If you have a favorite of the two, I’d love to hear it. Leave a Monday or Wednesday in the comments. I’ll take those opinions into consideration while making my choice!


Java 365

What I find I like the most about this year’s 365 project, is that in order to have interesting photos related to coffee, I’m trying new coffee things! This week’s new coffee was my own blend, leftover coffee if you will. I took the last of a bag of Starbucks espresso beans that I had in the fridge and put them in my coffee grinder with a couple sticks of cinnamon. I ground that top drip coarseness and mixed it with an equal measure of our everyday Columbian. That gave me enough grounds for two fantastic full-bodied pots of Cinnamon-espresso-Columbian. Serve it with Coffeemate and Splenda and it’s just a Heaven-sent treat! I’m thinking it’s time to look into some one-pot bags of beans and maybe a vanilla bean and continue playing!

Here is my week three masterhouse…er, masterpiece:

Credits: Nicole’s Coffee by Green Elephant Designs,
Template P365-Java1 by Digitalegacies Designs

This week’s layout is done with a Digitalegacies Designs template and you know what that means! I have a gift to share!



Password is coffee

J1 is a great template for your project 365 layouts or any multi-photo page with some room for more elements or journaling. If you download it, I’d love to read your comments here rather than at 4-shared and if you use the template in a layout, I’d love to see it! You can link to it in comments or via email.

2010, Week 1

Well, it’s a week into the second decade of the third millennium AD…

That’s the key to happiness – make every day an event. Think about it, there has never been a January 7, 2010 before and there never will be one again. In your lifetime, you will meet people who weren’t here for this day. They’ll only know about it by your memory of it. This days belongs to US.

Today was the first day of the semester for me. I earned my first 10 points for the class by posting my introduction in the discussion forum. The forums are how you earn your class participation in online classes. I also now have 50 pages to read between tonight and tomorrow so I can get working on the assignments. So now all of my New Year goals are in process!

I did my catch-up layout for today this morning, picking up the notes for the speed scrap at Designs in Digital. The speed scraps there are due by 5 the next day, to give all time zones the opportunity to join in. I got it done in just over an hour while I had breakfast!

Credits: Kit is Aidan Again by Retrodiva Designs

Today’s “scrapping in the now” layout is the first week of Java 365!

Credits: January Recycle Bin by Mrs JayBob,

Template is modified from Project 52, Week 1 by Dogs Day Designs

After blogging tonight, I owe me one more catch-up LO. I didn’t do one yesterday because I was in the Motherland for most of the day. I went to visit Grandma first. That’s become a visit that’s a little draining for me, but still one I’m glad I do. Her confusion is increasing, but there is so much she still fights to remember and understand. It’s the moments of fire in her eyes, that glance of happiness that I’m there that make every bit of difficulty and every mile of the drive worth it.

Then I stopped at Cracker Barrel in Belleville to meet Tracy and Heather for dinner. My plan really was to leave for home by 8:00 and NOT close the place like we always end up doing. Well, the guy who locks down the rocking chairs on the porch at close held the door open for us when we were leaving. I frustrate myself, but I don’t take it to heart. I know how lucky I am that I have dear friends that I can just get so wrapped up in being with that we all lose track of time. And they are friends that make the same effort I do to be together, it’s that important to us. I got into the house 45 minutes after I left the restaurant, just as I was getting the “I’m home” text from Heather. I texted back “Me too,” and sent an “I’m home” to Tracy who sent back “Okay, me too now,” just a few minutes later. So, now I need to finish up another catch-up layout to keep on track. A small price to pay for such awesome people in my family!


Friend of Wife 1500

I found an awesome diet tool online! LiveStrong.com has some great food and fitness tools. You can choose to use them in your account privately or publicly in the online community. I choose to use the tools privately. I know that a lot of people do well with steady support or by making a detailed public affirmation, actually writing about this on my blog is my affirmation, I just don’t do well with a “diet stage” where strangers encourage you to change. Even if I want to make changes in my life, I don’t want a stranger agreeing with me! Some people like to post a picture of themselves at their physical worst where they can see it all the time to keep them from “cheating.” I think looking at a picture of myself that looks as bad as I can is putting way to much importance on appearance and fostering a negative self image. I prefer to get a really cute blouse that doesn’t fit…yet and have my reward as a goal!

I have my food, water and exercise diary at livestong. They have a fantastic food database for counting the calories and nutrition stats. I even found Bauli Panettone, Mac Snack Wraps and Cracker Barrel sides there! They also have the stats for all of my Trader Joe’s favorite items! So far this week, I’ve hit between 1000 and 1500 calories every day, which is my goal range. That total is low enough to reduce me, but high enough not to lower my metabolism. That was my problem with the South Beach diet when I tried it. I have elevated cholesterol and have had for a while. I have to keep the fat content of what I eat in check. Low carb diets are made for people with high blood sugar and no problems with cholesterol. I knew the recipes in South Beach were a fat content that was essentially heart attack on a plate for me, so I cut the fat out. I was consuming 500-600 calories a day. I felt sick and lost three pounds the first week – then I gained 4 the next week.

At livestrong.com, I get to analyze the stats at the end of the day, and I LOVE analyzing stats! My averages for this week have been at about 100% or less of the RDA carbohydrates and sodium, very low in fat and cholesterol and high in sugar. That doesn’t really surprise me because I’m really conscious of the fat and cholesterol intake. I’ve never had issues with blood pressure and my blood work has consistently been perfect in the area of blood sugar levels. So, if the balance is a little high in sugars but low in fats, I’m okay with that. What I love, is that I now have a calculator that will measure all of the other levels for me so I can concentrate on the calories and just make sure I keep the other levels in check. So, “My Plate” at livestong is my Wife 1500 best friend!


Tomorrow is going to be our undecorating day. The tree stays up and lit until epiphany, which was yesterday. It’s always a sad day for me when the tree comes down. I love the lights and our tree is very personal, all the bits of David and me, from the crystal ballerina Mom gave me in recognition of my dancing as a child to the glass poker chip stacks recognizing David’s evening hobby. The cats, the coffee cups, the baseball and train ornaments and all of our dated ornaments, one for every year we’ve been together, our tree is a beautiful celebration of the holiday and the hearts that make ours a home. Oh the love and smiles will always live here, but the magic that is the holidays will go back in the boxes to sprinkle it’s glitter again in another 11 months!

Okay, now I’m going to celebrate what’s left of my one and only January 7, 2010, ever. I hope you all enjoyed yours!


Links - livestrong.com

Goaltending Starts in the Morning!

The personal goal of better health and weight starts when I wake up. It’s Monday and David will work a little later, so we’ll probably do hot breakfast, as we often do when he’s working late, then we’re hoping to get to the grocery store to stock up on meats and veggies for the week, including some fruit for me and cup-o-soup, which rates way up there for Nani-snacks! I’ll try to remember to photograph breakfast so I can show it off with the calorie counts. I’m not going to do that every meal, every day, but tomorrow being the 2010 kick off and all, I’ll ask you all to indulge me!

Since the educational goals start later this week, I’ll be doing some organizing and scrapping on Monday. Scrapping in the now and a page-a-day in catching up starts officially tomorrow. I already have my layout of the first photos of 2010 done, with a few photos from BORTrail this weekend that will make a page or two. I decided not to do a show of my train photos this year. After the months that ended last year, I just wanted to take a break between the holidays. Besides, my Mac is getting way up there in years and very slow. It’s not that it won’t make movies anymore, but I know that right now it’s more stress than I wanted to deal with waiting forever for each bit to render! I’m hopeful that by next December I’ll either have a Mac upgrade or at least some decent calm in my life that I won’t mind the extra time the undertaking needs right now! There were a lot of fellow railfans that were surprised and a little disappointed that I wasn’t representing the BORT Women on the screen with my usual solo act. David did an awesome job on his show! He did a “talkie,” narrating rather than music with his slides and ended his show to an ovation from the fellow railfans when he showed his excellently exposed shots of the rainbow we saw on our honeymoon!

So, tomorrow, in addition to at least one catch-up layout, I’ll get probably page 2 and 3 of 2010 done too. I said that a page-a-day will officially start tomorrow, but I’ve been trying to keep that started since just before Christmas. I got a lot of catching up of the holiday stuff done as Christmas challenge layouts in 2009. I finished up 4 that I’d started before the end of the year on New Year’s Day while David was at work. I figure that counts as 2, since it was 4 half-done ones! I wasn’t home yesterday and didn’t bring my laptop with me because I know BORTrail runs late and I’m usually very tired by the time we check into the hotel. But I did get a catch-up layout for today d0one!

This is the begining of February, 2007:

Credits: Lions Fan Kit by Midnight Scrapping (except NFL trademarks),
template 11 by Designs by CMR

That one is a little fun ripping on the home football team of my Michigander days! I had only been an Ohiogander for 6 weeks when the frozen-over pictures in Hell, Michigan were taken!


Java 365 Update

Three days in and I have three coffee photos! Yay! I joined My Life & Scrap, who is doing a Project 52 challenge, which opens up to either a weekly layout of daily shots or weekly photos. You get a free template every week, that you don’t have to use to complete the week’s layout, and If you have 52 pages done at the end of the year, you win a year of access to Dogs Day Designs’ store, she’s the challenge host for the project 52, plus a year of store collabs! As if the free templates and encouragement wasn’t enough incentive to keep with it. WOW!

Well, I’m going to wrap up tonight in planning and scrapping. Is anyone else doing a project 365 or 52 this year? Anyone want some comment space for goals or resolutions, to brag, get some support or just make a public affirmation? Please feel welcome to shout it out in the comments. We’ll all raise a mug of cyber-coffee to your planned success!

Goals and Projects for 2010

Christmas Eve Breakfast Still Life

Isn’t the photo cool? The photo isn’t all breakfast. Just one slice with coffee, but the full sliced quarter of the Panetonne looked better for the picture! That is a sample for my Project 365 in 2010. More about that later! I cut the huge Panetonne my Dad got me into quarters and wrapped up the other three to freeze. I’m the only one in our house who eats it, but the Panetonne brings back such sweet memories of Noni and the fact that she always made a special effort to find the ones without the candied oranges for Mom and me. It’s also quite tasty as a mildly sweet breakfast bread to the portion of my taste buds that are authentic San Marinese and a rather large and filling slice is only 310 calories!

This week’s Photoblog Wednesday was the final photo of Patch 365. No, we didn’t choose to go out to celebrate our first anniversary the night before for that reason, but it was a neat byproduct of the scheduling! So the book starts with our first married photo and ends with us celebrating our first anniversary with 52 weekly pages and some pretty cool extras in between. No, I’m far from done scrapping it. I have each week’s photos in a folder wi0th the notes for captioning them so I have the facts and memories recorded to catch up the scrapping as I can. But I think it’s going to be a pretty cool book to have on our coffee table recording the special days and the things that made the ordinary days special of our first married year!

I decided that I’d do a selfish project 365 this year and try something fun and a little artsy just for me. Now, I really do believe that scrapbooking is selfish, but in a giving way. It’s sort of like the great painters. They can be called selfish because they created works for their own fulfillment, their expression of what was inside of them. It just so happened that the beauty and emotion of their efforts touched many people and that beauty became a treasure and the mark, the legacy they left to the world. Isn’t a scrapbook the same thing? A well-done scrapbook is a beautiful piece of expressive art that becomes a cherished treasure to those with whom it’s shared. So for 2010, my Project 365 will be a special to me book when it’s done. If many years down the line it becomes a special look at me or a fun book for anyone else to look at, bonus! But the project is all for my own expression and nothing else, just for fun for me.

2010 will be my year of Java 365. I’m going to take a picture of coffee every day. It will most often be my coffee, but I’m not limiting myself to that, it could also be ambient shots of coffee shops or another Sapp Brothers water tower, something like that. It will usually be my coffee, but not just a photo of the cup – that would get boring. I’m going to set up still life presentations with the coffee, with a sweet roll or other accompaniment. I took a picture on the steam train trip we went on in October of my coffee on the window sill, obviously on a train with the countryside in the background, I’ll probably do holiday accents for the holiday coffee pics. I’m just going to have some fun with it.



As 2010 starts, I have 4 major goals I’m working on for the year. The first one is, of course, school! Spring semester starts January 8 and this term I’m taking an XHTML class, which is the first Network Security class. It’s a prerequisite to moist of the security certificate classes and a suggested prerequisite to the intro security class, which is part of the Networking certificate. In the fall, I’ll take the second Microsoft Server class, but rather than doubling up this semester, I’m going embark of major project number two, which is getting myself exam-ready for Network+ certification. I have a couple practice exams and I figure I’ll start with using one to really study and sign up to take the official exam when I can get a passing score with no notes or internet on the other. This will definitely keep me out of trouble and off the streets! I don’t like to be on the streets when it snows anyway!

Project number 3 is a recommitment to Wife 1500. I did not gain from Wedding day to first anniversary, but I didn’t lose much either. Like I’ve said before, it was an emotionally rough last half of the year, but there will always be challenges in life and I can’t allow myself to make them worse by using them as an excuse not to take care of myself. I’ve asked David to do a couple things to support me on this. First is not to skip dessert because I’m not sharing the same dessert. I’m lucky that he shares my taste for Jello as a lighter dessert, but if at the end of the day I don’t have adequate calories left for a piece of cake and/or ice cream, I want him to have it if he wants it. The surest way for me to not stick with my eating plan is if he’s not having things he wants because of it. He should NEVER feel bad if he’s having a brownie with ice cream when I’m having three strawberries with a tablespoon of chocolate!

The second thing he agreed to try to remember to do is recognize that if I’m eating something out of a bag or box and it’s not a measured portion in a bowl for a snack, something’s wrong and he should ask me about it. Even if I don’t want to talk about what’s bugging me, and in fact, I may not even realize that something is bugging me, it will call my attention to the bad-for-me habit and I’ll effect an immediate change in it!

My last major goal for 2010 is a scrapbooking goal. I am in 2007 in my scrapbooks. I am going to do a minimum layout a day to work on catching up. I start a new book at the beginning of the year, so I’m going to scrap 2010 in the now while I’m catching up the other three years. 365 layouts may not catch up three years if I do the minimum, but it will make a big dent! I average about 150 pages per year in my books. If I can start 2011 having made significant ground on the years that need caught up without adding another year to those files, it will make for a much more pleasant start!

So those are my ambitious plans for the first year of the new decade. Do you do goals or resolutions? What are some of your lofty plans? Hey, that’s probably a good first layout for 2010!

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

I think I’m finally getting a grip on things! I’m working on a filing system to get our bills and Grandma’s bills in and separated. I need to finish putting that together and start getting my school work area cleaned up. I’ll have the last chapter done by the end of tomorrow and then there is one more test, a term project and the final exam. Next semester I’m taking the class that is the prerequisite for a number of the classes for the security certificate and I’ve emailed my adviser for some internship leads for 2010.

I’ve downloaded a copy of Vista Pro and I think I’m going to install it after the class is done. I don’t want all new stuff and maybe install trouble to deal with while class is still in session, but the virtual Windows Server work with every version of Vista Home Premium, which is the one I have! Microsoft has a great program to supply free software to enrolled college students.Uncle Bill!*

*I won’t be so warm and fuzzy about Bill Gates if upgrading to Pro gives me an ulcer!



A New Award!


Edna, from Miss Edna’s Place, selected me for an award on her blog!

As a recipient of the Honest Scrap award, I must reveal ten random things about me!

1. While my views are most similar to Unitarian Christian, I’m not religious. I am, however, a VERY spiritual Christian.

2. David can bring home anything I don’t like for dinner as long as he brings me roasted red pepper hummus and pita chips.

3. I always get stressed at this time of year because I have to have the house ready to entertain and we are usually very laid back about housekeeping.

4. Although I hate cleaning, I LOVE entertaining and I love Christmas, so in the end, it’s worth the stress.

5. I’m loving school and what I’m learning, especially the network security and that’s the direction I ultimately want to go.

6. I quit wearing the costume jewelry rings I used to wear all the time after I got married because my wedding ring makes them look cheap and gaudy.

7. I hate competition. Oh, professional sports is okay, because it’s really only the athletes winning or losing and they get paid so much when they lose, that it’s really not losing, but I hate personally competing. I’m either good enough at what I do, or I’m not. I don’t like being better or worse than someone else.

8. I still like being recognized for my achievements.

9. I don’t like to drive. The Camaro is what makes it bearable.

10. My stats tell me people visit my blog, but I always hope there are comments to moderate when I log on and I'm a little disappointed when there's not!

Scrapping Burn Out?


Remember when I was lamenting all the places I post scrap layouts online going to the points systems and how that made me unhappy and really, uninspired? Well, I started doing a little surfing.

The challenges at my regular sites haven’t inspired me much and when there isn’t a posting bonus to want or even to be inspired by, it’s difficult to want to do a challenge layout. Yeah, I know, I get points and twenty if those points will get me a dollar off at the store and 5 of those additional four dollars I spend to get a kit will pay for my parking at school for a semester! Maybe the points challenges will be more inspiring after I finish school when I have a paycheck instead of a tuition bill.

So, in looking for something more inspiring, I joined Designs in Digital. For their regular challenges, they have points too, but for the special challenges, they have regular posting bonuses. I participated in my first speed scrap this week. That as a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a Wednesday night!

Credits: Chocolate and Vanilla by Mamrotka

I completed this layout for my Patch 365 book while enjoying some chat. Then yesterday, I got a PM for a free set of journaling elements. I LOVE to journal on my pages! That’s one of the things I like about digital over paper scrapping. My handwriting isn’t great and often illegible!

DID does the speed scrap every Wednesday and I think I’m going to definitely try to hang out there on Wednesdays!

I also revisited a place that I joined solely to do a challenge because for the posting bonus a few years back. DSO was digital scrapbooking .org at that time, and Darlene Haughin was a designer there. I considered that a major bonus! I was disappointed when server troubles caused the entire gallery to be wiped out a while do3wn the road and we were encouraged to sign up again and start over. I did because I was on a designer at the store’s CT by that time, although I wasn’t happy about starting over. While we were encouraged to rejoin, no one ever apologized for the gallery being wiped out. That left me feeling a bit forgotten. When it happened again, none of “my” designers were selling there anymore, so I didn’t rejoin, even though I really admired many of the store designers.

Fast forward to Wednesday after the speed scrap. I was reading Kim, of Kim’s Scrapin’s, blog and she was taking about the color challenge at DSO. I thought maybe I’d have another look at them and, just like the first time I saw the site, there was a posting bonus that just caught me. It’s a beautiful mini kit for the lyric challenge and upon seeing it, I signed up! That’s the layout I started working on yesterday that I hope to finish tonight.

So, my exploring has uncovered the fun, and really great tool for catching up, that speed scrapping is and that DSO, which is Digi Scrap Obsession now, still has great PBs for their challenges! I’m not feeling so uninspired now! I’m glad that didn’t last long!


Digitalegacies Designs Kits

I’m not professionally designing anymore, well, yes I am, just in a more retired mode!

Digitalegacies Designs is one of the designers at a new site, Discount Digi Scraps! I’m not creating anything new. DDS is a store for retired products at deep discount prices!


So far I have a few things in my store there. I’ve resurrected Train, Train and I’m All In. You can get these for free once again! I’ve also begun to repackage and upload my store items from Scrap Bird into the DDS store. Eight Days a Week and It’s Christmas All Over The World are there.


You can get the full Christmas kit for $1.50 or just the ornaments in 8 different languages for $1.00. The popular Eight Days A Week Project 365 quick pages are all four for only $1.00. There are other great designers and the store is always growing, but the prices are shrinking! Be sure to check it out!




Cat Call

Things are starting to get a little more peaceful in eh cat world. Carla is not the one being aggressive now. She’s trying to get close for a sniff. Sometimes it’s greeted with a hiss or a growl, but they are all being more tolerant. It’s just taking some time and it will take some more time for it to be all good, but we’re working on it.

We took Carla in for her vet appointment today. She needed to be checked out, but she also has a case of the sniffles. We’d been calling her Sneezy because she would have little sneezing tizzies, but then she developed congested breathing and she even snored. She started having a teary discharge from both eyes too and yesterday morning, so I called to see if I could get her appointment moved up. We took her in this morning at 8 AM.

She has antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection and antihistamines for the runny eyes and sneezing. I have soft treat pill pockets, but she wouldn’t eat them, so I had to go torturous old school on her and put them in her throat. Got the antibiotic down, but I got a scratch on my hand for the antihistamine, which I thought was down her, but she promptly spit out before she ran upstairs. After I got back from the grocery store, I sat with her and got the treat encased antihistamine down her.


Things are starting to get more peaceful. I was on the phone and couldn’t get a shot, but for about a good fifteen minutes today, we had three cats, all on different cat seats, but all watching the big screen Cat TV in the front of the house today. It’s moving along!

Now I’m off to play Donna Reed and have dinner ready for hubby. We’re having marinated chicken, julienne potatoes and broccoli. Off to cook!