Getting ready for...

Last weekend was the Senior Ball.  Ashlyn and I found her dress on Amazon.com.  We both loved it immediately and no other dress really measured up to it.  We bought the matching bolero so that she would have a beautifully modest dress.  I love it when we can pull the modesty thing off...and this time we did.  Pull it off.  Her date for the evening was Seth Haines, one of her hockey player friends.  They decided to go to Pagoda for dinner before the dance.  Unfortunately for Seth, he and one of his buddies both got really sick within a couple of hours.  They both had Sweet and Sour Chicken from Pagoda...things that make you go hmm?  So, Cinderella was home well before her curfew.  She was understandably disappointed and I was thrilled that I got to go to bed just a bit earlier.

I'm a girl...I can change my mind

Well, I just kept coming back to this layout...unsatisfied with it. I finally changed the background paper to this grungy Kraft and I am liking it much better. In so many areas of my life I like fru fru, I {adore} fru fru. But I am finding that when I scrapbook, I like a simplistic feel to the page. I like my pictures to be the focal point, not the embellishments. So I did it, I completed my first Life Layout.

Tomorrow, I am taking a friend out to Chena Hotsprings, she is visiting from Oregon and I think she NEEDS to experience Chena Hot Springs in all of its below zero glory. Should make for some great pictures, but I am thinking I will take one of our garage sale cameras. The pictures may not be as nice, but I'm not taking a chance with Rebel. Have a great weekend.

Life 365:Week 1 {My Technology}

As I was thinking about this project, the first thing that came to mind was technology.  All these little gizmos and gadgets that come together to make my life happier, in some cases a lot happier.

The top picture is of my job.  That is my wonderful SLP that teaches and guides me (Hi Lucinda!).  We do all of this over the internet.  She lives in Portland and attends our speech sessions via Skype.  We have unlimited resources at our fingertips and I think it makes our therapy "fresh" for the kids.  We enjoy working together, each day I am so excited to power up my computer and have our morning chat.  My job makes me VERY happy...but I do have to say that we use Macs at work and I don't get what the fuss is all about.  It is not nearly as user friendly as a PC...going back and forth between the two is not an easy transition for me.

Now, speaking of computers, this confession is going to date me...a LOT.  I can remember when I was in Mr. Kornstad's 6th grade classroom and our principal proudly rolled in our schools FIRST computer.  It was an apple IIe and it was revolutionary.  It was dos based and I remember our class project was to play the Oregon Trail.  It was, I believe, the very first Personal Computer (PC).  Now you look at our schools and every classroom has 1 or more, we have an extremely high tech computer lab of 28 of the lastest Mac's at my school.  What an amazing technology to witness.

The next picture is my beloved laptop that Mark got me for my birthday in 2008.  Its a lovely shade of green, because as you all know, I avoid boring whenever possible.  My only lament is that I wanted the gawjus pink laptop, really, really bad...But my husband said eventually when it was time to get a new one he would take this one and he did not want it to be pink.  Stinker has since bought his own laptop, which is navy blue (boring, yawn).  So, next time it is pink, although I did see one that was  lovely espresso brown...hmmm, choices. 

Also pictured with my laptop is my iPhone.  I truly {heart} my iPhone.  It keeps me connected to those I love.  I have learned how to...gasp: TEXT!  It took me a while, but I love that I can check in on Ashlyn, say Hi to my sister, tell Mark I love him.  I have had some of the most amazing conversations with my daughter about subjects she doesn't feel comfortable talking to me face to face about.

The last picture is my newest beloved gadget...my Kindle.  Does anyone know what a Kindle is?  It is an ebook reader, it is proprietary with Amazon, but thats okay, me likey Amazon.  It can hold 1500 books.  At first, I wasn't too sure if it would be the same and there are some drawbacks (can't loan a book).  But I LOVE having books so readily available and since space is an issue in my house I had stopped buying books, and I am terrible about returning them to the library, so I had pretty well stopped reading.  Well...NO LONGER.   I am again immersing myself in my love of words, painting pictures in my head.  I just cannot say enough good things about my Kindle.

What is your favorite piece of technology?  What do you have that has changed your life so that you are unwilling to live without it?

Our Family: 2010

Kit & Template: Weeds and Wildflowers, January Sweet & Simple: Life 365.

My children are growing...so fast now.  This picture was taken at Leah's baptism.  It's hard to believe my BABY is almost 9.  This is the title page for Life 365.  I like how this is forcing me to pick up my camera, I like that my kids are getting used to the camera so they aren't posing as much (I really dislike the poses).  I like that I am becoming more mindful of the memories and of capturing them.

It is so easy to get caught up in the rush of life and put things off.  I am horrible at that.  I don't want to put my life off, I want to live it now, enjoy it today.

So...here's to {today}.

Gulp...taking the plunge

For years I have wanted a DSLR camera...a Canon Rebel EOS to be exact. I was able to purchse the TSi last week and I couldn't be more thrilled...wanna see it?

It is sleek and beautiful and promises to be my faithful companion...I in turn have committed to carrying it as MY faithful companion, an extension of me.

It has lots of buttons and dials that I am anxious to disover, but for now "Full Auto Mode" is taking beautiful pictures. I have been pouring over books and am looking into an online photography class to help me fully maximize the potential of my new friend, what fun we'll have disovering each other.

Did you see the lovely camera case I picked out too? So fun and sassy...it makes me happy.

Well, now that I have a really nice digital camera and since I want to learn how to use it, I am contemplating committing myself to Project 365.

Basically the premise is that you take a picture every day documenting your life, the ordinary, the extraordinary and the mundane. Then you make a weekly scrapbook layout documenting this. At the end of the year you will have 52 layouts documenting your life. I think this is a wonderful idea and that our future generations will love seeing the day to day activities of our lives.

My concern is how do you document the day to day without it being the same ole same ole, know what I mean? So...if I have any readers left I would love to hear your thoughts on this and would gladly entertain ideas for photo op's.

Taking a Class...and some news.

One of the blogs that I like to follow is Cathy Zielske.  She used to work for Simple Scrapbooks and I just love her writing style.  Thats why I was thrilled when she announced on her blog several weeks ago that she would be teaching an online scrapbooking class through Big Picture Scrapbooking called Me: The Abridged Version (Me:TAV).

I am fascinated by the concept of telling my story.  She based this class on a book called: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Mark is in town picking up my copy as I write.  Writing is something that I really enjoyed in high school.  I've lost touch with that and have recently had a desire to have more meaningful journaling in my scrapbooking.  I'm guilty of enjoying the moments with my family, so though I call myself a scrapbooker, I don't have a lot of pictures.  I decided that I need to use my words to tell the stories that I want to share and this class would help me rediscover those words.

Our first assignment was to make a tag book or use her prepared template.  I opted for her template and then altered it to suit my style.

Ta-Da!!!  Me likey very muchly thank you.  I used a combination of Kraft and Pink Cardstock.  I further embellished it with lace and velvet ribbon, a crocheted flower with button center, some bling, pearls and grungy ink on the edges...Shabby Chic BABY!

There is a seperate tag for each letter of the alphabet.  Our assignment was to carry this with us and as we go throughout out day jot down one word nouns on the appropriate letter of things that are important to us and will help us tell our story.  For example:  I wrote down Garage and Grown Up Job under G.  Stamps and Scrapbooking under S.  I got a little delayed on this with my new Grown Up Job, but I am steadily filling up my letters.

 
I am really the most excited to be taking a class for me.  Just because I want to.  Just because I can.  Just because I don't HAVE to.  Thats really different for me.  I'm normally the one offering the classes.  I must confess, I am really liking being on the other side of it.

Which leads to my announcement:   I have been contemplating this for a VERY long time and have finally decided to share.  I was recently re-hired by my School District and am thrilled with what they will have me doing.

I am the new Special Education, Speech Aide.  But we are doing something that is cutting edge.  We are experiencing a shortfall of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) in our state.  Because these services are federally mandated, our district is trying a new soloution.  They have contracted with an SLP firm in Portland, OR to provide SLP services to a few of their schools.  How are they going to do this?  So glad you asked.  Are you ready for this:  my SLP is going to attend our daily speech sessions with video conferencing through Skype.  Isn't technology an amazing thing?  I will be her assistant and will work under her direction with our students.  Tuesday is my first day in session with students.  How cool is that???  Because my SLP is out of state, this job has quite a few responsbilities for me.

Because of this, I have decided to discontinue being a Stampin' UP! Independent Demonstrator as of 9/31/2009.  I don't think this is a huge surprise to my customers, I haven't done much for the past year.  But, I have decided to walk away from it.  I am a little bit sad, SU! was a huge part of my life for 7 years.  I have been blessed with an amazing group of women, whom I shall call friends for life.  Thanks to all of you for your love, laughter, concern and support.  You truly are amazing!!!

May your stamps be plentiful and your pads be inky!
Arctic Stamp Queen

Keepin' Warm

Hello Strangers...I seem to keep apologizing for my lapses in blogging.  So...I've decided to stop. 

Apologizing that is.  Life is life, things happen.  I'm a busy happily married single mom.  Dad works nights, sleeps days, so I wear a lot of hats at my house.  When I can carve out some time, I do.  I have been busy putting all of my digital scrapbooking elements into a database with ACDSee Photo Organizer.  It has taken many hours, but it has made digi scrappin' so much easier.  Well worth the time.  I {heart} that I can find what I need fast.

I finally broke down and got PSE 7.  There is a learning curve, but thanks to The DigitalScrapbookTeacher, I am figuring it out.  This is my first layout in PSE7.  I used  freebie template #69 by The Paper Iris.  Here's her sample:

See how different mine looks, just because I chose different colors.  That still amazes me.

I have been thinking lately about my purpose in scrapbooking.  I have to tell a secret...I call myself a scrapbooker, but I don't have a whole lot of pictures.  I realized that a lot of times I am so caught up in the moment that I forget to grab my camera.  So, I am resolving to do better.  For now, I will use the pictures I have and use my words to tell the story.  I've always loved writing.  THIS feels good and right to me.

I've also been looking back at the paper pages I have created and realized that I like my words and pictures to be the focal point.  I'm not into fancy shmancy...I found that my pages were consistently uncluttered, with a couple of pictures, my words...and it needs to be a double page spread.  I tried a couple of single pages and it was very distracting to me visually.  So, now I know my style...what's yours?

Supplies:  Paper Iris Freebie Template #69, Papers by Flergs Studio, Staples by Studio Girl Maya: Staple Stash.