MIA with Pictures

I've been a bad blogger- but with good reason!  I had some amazing women here last week, and I just didn't have the chance to blog.  Still in limbo with the miscarriage and the job.  Not even going to go there in this post.  It just makes me mad.  So, instead I am going to share with you photos of what I was up to while my blog sat neglected!

It was great to host these amazing ladies!  We see each other every other year- and it's always like we've never been apart.  They've been such a support for me over the years, and I am so glad I got the chance to show them my home and my city!

Taking a break from the heat in Lake Geneva

Four scrapbookers= lots of photo ops!

Buttrick Sawmill in Antioch- Tradition of taking photos using the timer which requires me to RUN to get into the shot.  This year was no different!

Lots of laughter- Love this shot because it truly shows the spirit of this amazing woman.  :)

Attending the CHA show with my girls- Gloria was able to get us tickets and we LOVED seeing all of her work featured at Spellbinders, Graphic 45, & Hampton Arts!  (Totes were my gift to them made by Just Embroidered Totes and Stuff)

Making sure the girls got to experience all of the Chicago Style food I could come up with- This is Gino's East Pizza.

Beverly's husband Stephen with the girls- It was so nice to see him again!

Out on the LEDGE at the skydeck.  That's not photoshopped! 

Had to take the girls to Ed's for lunch! 

It was the HOTTEST day of the year... but I insisted that they needed to see the Bean. 

Art Journal Pages

It's been a long week... but school is officially out for the summer!  While I start summer school on Tuesday, I am still getting into the summer groove. 

I am taking an online art journal workshop by Christy Tomlinson.  It was just what I needed after months of creative drought and the stress of school and our miscarriages.  Chris is at a swim meet this weekend, and the weather here in Chicago is ugly this weekend.  So I took advantage and spent most of the weekend so far in my studio watching class videos and creating.  The class is called Three Hearts and it is based on the idea that we have three hearts that we share.  One with the world, one with our family, and one with ourself.  The class is heavy on techniques, but also on journalling ideas.  This is my first attempt at an art journal, and I am LOVING it.  Breaking out supplies I haven't used in a long time (if ever) to create. 

Here are some of the pages I've created so far...

Happy NSD!

That's National Scrapbooking Day for those of you who had no clue what I was talking about.  :)

Thanks for all the great suggestions on our photo shoot.  We moved it to tomorrow because the weather is supposed to be nicer (as in no rain and at least 60).

I was inspired by Amy  to make a sign for us to use for our profile photos.  As a papercrafter, I had more than a  few supplies to work with.  I even cut up some paper I had been saving for something special... decided it was time!

After several versions, here is what I came up with.  The photo isn't great as I took it on my phone, but you can get the idea.  Hoping it shows up in the photos tomorrow!

Hoping to scrap at least one page today.  It's been way too long, and it really is my creative escape.  I need to remember that I NEED to do things like this for myself.  :)

Update:

I just took out a photo and made a page... and it felt really good to do it!  I was inspired by an NSD prompt by the amazing and talented Shimelle.  This is Chris and I at his brother's wedding in 1998.  (The brother has since been divorced twice, but that's another story!)
Just decided to do a quick page and NOT over think it... something I need to practice in life in general.  :)

So here it is:

I took the photo with my phone again, so the coloring is a little off.  But I was too excited to share that I didn't want to go get my camera!

Have a wonderful day!

Maybe I will just blog in photos...

I have lots of emotion and thoughts in my mind right now. We are still coming to terms with our failure this February. I am still surpisingly raw from the whole ordeal, and the upcoming Mother's Day isn't making it any easier. I don't really have words to express myself right now, so for now I will update with some photos that illustrate what I've been doing lately in order to ignore the fact that we are still in limbo in the whole infertility world.

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Here are some cards I made for a silent auction. One of the amazing women who subbed for me when I was in Colorado is good friends with a woman who is battling a rare form of cancer. I wanted to do something, so I made these cards for the silent auction. Rumor has it they went for $25. Every little bit helps I am sure. Here is a link to the site: Team Kelly I think they are planning more fundraisers in her honor.

I used Fancy Pants papers and My Mind's Eye cards as well as an assortment of brads and flowers. The box is actually a Godiva Chocolate box that I recovered. The cards went together so well that I have actually made a few more sets!

Chris and I also got the window boxes and planters planted this weekend. It's early for the midwest, but I figure we can bring them in if it looks like frost and they will be in full bloom sooner. It just makes the front of the house look so much nicer. Please excuse the "rustic" paint on the house...

Left Flower Pot- I am in LOVE with these daisies. I hope they keep blooming!

Hope that everything in this drapes down nicely!

Right side of the house Fresh mulch but nothing much in the beds yet. Might be doing some construction this summer, so don't plan on doing much in the beds. Might add a few more planters instead.

And one final photo... this is one of my good friends and coworkers and I. She has been such a source of strength for me over the past year. Photo was taken at our annual trip to Miller Park to see our Cubbies take on the Milwaukee Brewers.

Project Life (yes, a non infertility post!)

Thought I would share my project life album that I have been working on. I thought this would be a great year to do this, since I thought I was going to be pregnant for most of it. But we all know how that turned out, so I am not going to go there.

The goal is to take a photo a day and journal about it. The album is a kit from Becky Higgins. You can find it at Amazon now. There are divided page protectors so all you have to do is slip the photos and cards in.

I am actually all caught up except for the journalling for last Sunday. Still not sure what I want to write that could sum things up.

So here it is:

Long time NO Blog

It has been some time since I last blogged, hasn't it?  I have been using twitter and facebook religiously and sadly my blog has been neglected.  Thanks to Beverly for giving me the nudge to finally post something!  :)

Summer is nearly over... but I am THRILLED to have several more weeks thanks to a construction schedule at school.  We are getting central air in all of our classrooms which meant taking out all of the ancient plumbing and vents.  We are also getting new shelving along the outside wall.  Can't wait to see it all put back together.  However, I am so grateful to have the few extra weeks this summer.

Our summer has been full of swim meets as always.  Chris loves his job and has been so very busy!  I have tagged along for a few of the big meets.  He is currently one of the coaches for Team Illinois at the Central Zone meet.  After this weekend, he is finally done for the summer and has a break just about until I go back to school.  Usually he gets done just as I have to go back to work.

We did get to sneak away downtown for our anniversary.  We saw Mary Poppins and also took in a Cubs game with GREAT seats.  I used priceline and we got a GREAT deal on a hotel downtown.  We stayed at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue for $79 each night!  (Of course parking was $55 per night!)  It is hard to beleive we have been married 13 years.  We've been together for more than half of my life at this point!

I just returned from a wonderful weekend in New York with my virtual sisters.  The group of us met 6 years ago on AOL through the Scrapbooking message boards.  We've remained close and try to get together every other year.  It was nice to see them all in person and be able to give each of them a hug.  I was able to see New York and Vermont over the weekend and even took a trip down the Alpine Slide.  Ate lots of chocolate, did some shopping, and had some great laughs.  Looking forward to seeing them again in 2011! :)

My newest obsession involves my hair.  I have had a love/hate relationship with my natural curls for my entire life.  I can say that most of the time I currently lean towards the LOVE side.  Yesterday I went and got it cut short again, and I really am happy with the cut.  I was ready for something new.  I have a great stylist that really knows her stuff and always talks me out of doing anything outrageous.  As I was researching the cut I wanted, I visited naturallycurly.com a site that I often check.  I started to read up on the curly girl method of hair care.  I kept reading, and the more I read, the more it made sense.  I won't bore you with all of the detials, but here is a great link: How to Go Curly Girl.  I have been having a horrible time with my scalp in the past few months and I really think my products are to blame.  I have been using the same products for almost two years now. So as of today, I am now sulfate/silicone free.  It is going to take some time until I find products that I love.  It is my hope that I will have it all figured out before school starts!  :)

Grad school is almost done... November 4th can't come soon enough!  I have one more session in my current class and then two weeks off.  Of course I have several assignments I should be doing right now for that class.  :)  Better go do that now...

Feeling Creative

I am avoiding work... at least for one more day.  I wanted to get some creative time so I spent a few hours over the past few days on a few layouts and cards.  Here are two of the layouts I did.  Both are 6 x 12... a fun new size for me.  Now that I am using the Library of Memories system, I can mix page sizes.  I bought 6 x 12 page protectors and have been wanting to try a few layouts at this size.

Simba:

 

2008 Intentions:

I also did a few cards, but haven't scanned any of those.  I have a few more projects that I would like to do today.  Tomorrow will be all about getting ready for the week ahead... back to work.  :(

Week in My life...

So I was all excited to be starting the Week in my Life project that Ali Edwards is running on her blog. She taught the class at CKU back when I went, but I chose another album track. I always wanted to do it, so when she had it posted on her blog this week I jumped on board. I haven't been taking many photos lately, and I haven't felt very creative. I needed a boost. I know that I NEED to take the creative time- especially when I don't seem to have the time. It keeps me grounded and makes my spirit happy.

So I got my camera all set for Monday so I could capture my day in photos. I charged up the battery and put in the memory card. The memory card acting a little funny at first (wasn't recognized by the camera) but then it was fine. I went on my merry way taking lots of photos. Last night I was just too plain lazy to come upstairs so I didn't "dump" the memory card last night. This morning I was running late, but I remembered to grab my camera and took photos on my drive in and throughout the day just as I did yesterday. I was so proud of myself.

I finished my homework for class tomorrow and decided to dump the photos onto my IMac. Put the card into the card reader....... AND MY MAC FROZE! It has NEVER EVER EVER done that. :( Had to reboot. So I put the card back in and everything appears to be fine.... until I realize that photos are MISSING... like 50 or more photos! Of all of the photos I took yesterday, only SIX made it on my computer. I could scream. From today, there are tons missing too. They aren't even all in order... it is a few here and there. I AM SO MAD! I was so proud of myself and now I don't have the photos I wanted. So what do I do? Do I try again tomorrow? Do I scrap the whole project? Is this a sign that I have too much on my plate right now to even consider this? I really feel that this will be good for me- it will let me see my life from the outside and reflect on what is going on right now.

Ok, whining over. Here are some of my favorites that did make it onto my computer...

These are the books/notes that I should be reading right now


My darling Patches.. whining to go out for the 100th time tonight. She has recently found some spunk and has found her naughty side. While I am happy to see her active, she is making me a little nuts with everything she is getting into. But then I remember that my days with her are numbered... she will be 13 in December!
Then there is this face.... how can you not let him walk all over you? Wait, it's me that he walks all over! Yes, they still have on their 4th of July collars... it's too early for the Halloween ones and by the time I was ready to switch them, I decided to just wait a few more weeks and put them in the Halloween ones.

Ok, I will try again tomorrow. I have a different memory card in the camera now and am charging up the battery. Maybe my camera is finally starting to go wacky... it is an original Digital Rebel from 2002 and I have been drooling over the smaller, more advanced versions... A girl can dream, right?

Off to do some reading... maybe I should have some idea about the content for class tomorrow!

Library of Memories Update

One of my goals for the summer was to fully implement the Library of Memories framework. I took a class from Stacy Julian this spring and LOVED every minute of it. I wasn't able to keep up with all of the assignments at the end thanks to the end of the school year. The system just makes sense for me and I wanted to get it all set up before school starts again.

I spent most of today working on getting all of my finished Layouts integrated into the system. For those of you who aren't scrapbookers, I basically wanted to get my finished pages organized into categories so I could find them when I wanted to and others could look at them in a logical way. I decided that I would leave any pages that I did on Creative Memories pages alone... for now. I don't want to have to figure out how to separate them just yet.

So I started by taking all of the layouts out of their current albums. As a side note, whatever adhesive I used in 2004 failed miserably! I spent a good hour repairing pages with loose elements. So sad! I am hoping that my current adhesive holds up much better! Here is what it looked like when I pulled them all onto my dining room table:
The end result is the photo at the top of the post. I need to create a few more tags and actually need to get another black and red album to get things organized as I would like them to be. In sorting the layouts, I really started to see the patterns in what I scrapbook and what I really want/need to scrapbook in the future. I gave up chronological scrapbooking a few years ago, but I was never deliberate about what pages I did create. It was just whatever was closest to me. Now with this system, I can find my photos and really create pages that I want to create. I can create with intention. It is almost as if my love of the art has been reborn with this system. So that may be a little melodramatic...

I also did some cleaning in my studio before starting all of this. The side where I actually create is a MESS right now, but the rest of the room is in much better shape.These are the shelves in my "reading corner" The albums here are the chronological storage binders where all of my unscrapped photos are. I still have a few more years worth that need to get into binders. Right now they are in the triage area:The basket holds all of my memorabilia that needs to be filed as well. It is all starting to fall into place!

Here is the TV and table I have in the room when I have other people over to crop. It was our kitchen table in our last house! I would like to paint it white eventually and maybe even put on a glass top. The fan is necessary to keep the room cool. I have an OLD window air conditioner that has served me well up here! The fan just gives it a little extra help!

Here is my little reading corner. I would like to create a slip cover for the chair this week. We'll see how adventurous I feel. Sewing is really not one of my talents. :-) I leave that to my mom and sister!


I will probably spend most of tomorrow trying to get the other side of my space cleaned up. I really want to scrapbook now that I have most everything organized. I just need to have a clean space to do it in!

Monday Update

Just thought I would post a little update as to what I have been up to. I haven't scrapped in a few days, but have spent most of the past two days here in my scraproom. I found two rubbermaid totes FULL of photos that I didn't realize I had. I have been getting them all organized into my LOM system. I am so excited to see that it really works for me! I still have a LONG way to go, but at least I had a starting point for all of these photos and such. Most of the photos are from at least 10 years ago, so it was fun looking at all of them. Big hair and all... LOL.

It all started because I have finally decided to start a master's program this fall. It is something I should have done a LONG time ago, but life just wasn't right at the time. I could have done a cohort group right in my building years ago, but I was sure I was going to get pregnant and would have to leave the program. Funny how life works out, huh? So now I am just going for it. I should have started the process back in June, but I wasn't ready I guess. Now I am trying to make a decision about which program to go with and then I have to get all of my paperwork together. All of the applications need to know your undergrad GPA. I know the ballpark, but I don't remember the exact number. I know that I have a copy of my final transcript around here somewhere, but I have not been able to find it. :-( What I did find was the boxes listed above! LOL. I think I may call my district office because I know they have one on file so I can go get a copy of it. Most of the programs also need a copy of my current teaching certificate which is also kept at the district office. So looks like I will be heading into school sometime this week!

We've been busy with friends and the swim team. We went to the water part at Six Flags on Tuesday... that was fun, but our day was short since Chris had to get to practice. We had a double graduation party on Saturday for siblings on our swim team. The daughter is off to North Carolina in the fall. We've known her since she was 8, so we felt really OLD at her graduation party! LOL. The conference swim meet was also this weekend for the summer season, and Chris' team won. He was really excited about that since they lost the winter one by just a few points. We went out and celebrated last night at a local pizza place. We stayed until the mosquitos got so bad on the deck that they were carrying the small children away!

We took Dad's convertible out to lunch and we went to a place about an hour from here. I didn't even think about putting on sunscreen... and I ended up with a nice burn that includes a tan line... where the seat belt was! It is rather funny to see! My dad has this great dark skin, so he didn't even think about getting burned. LOL. Live and learn. Now I just need to put on sunblock everywhere BUT where the seat belt was next time we are out.

It's rainy and gloomy here today. Chris did not have morning practice this morning thankfully. He has been getting up at 4:30 every day this summer. He is just so tired! He is home by 8:30 am but then has office work to do. He is back at the pool by 3:45 and then gets home around 10. He is just plain tired! He has a few weeks off in August, so that will be good for him. I am not used to sharing the house during the summer, though! I am used to having my own space and my own schedule. I am sure we will survive!

LOM Update

I have been busy working on assignments for the Library of Memories class I am taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I am so in love with my progress so far. I am already feeling so much more organized and connected to my photos.

One of the big elements of the "program" are category drawers for your photos. I finally got some time to work on this over the past few days and am THRILLED with the way they are coming into place:
I am busy going through my photos and adding them to these files. I also have photos waiting to be printed at Snapfish. I am hoping to get my digital photos printed so that I can also add them to my files.

Break is almost over! :-( I worked on cleaning out the closet tonight. Chris is off at a meeting so I had the house to myself. I need to do a little more tomorrow, but that was the one thing IO really wanted to get done over break.

We have a wedding tomorrow and a pizza party on Sunday. Looks like I am back to work soon! :-)

Sisterhood Album

I've been working on this mini album for the last week. I don't even remember when I first bought this album, but have wanted to do something with it for a long time. These photos just seemed like the right fit. Each 2 page LO includes a photo of myself with one of my "virtual" sisters that I met this summer. These girls have all become a BIG part of my life, so I am so glad I finally got around to getting these pages done.

I will post more photos of the inside pages later.

Two LO's...

Here are two LO's that I have created for my scrapbook group:

The first one outlines my intentions for 2008.

The second was using a sketch and is documentation of my first 5k!

Two more before I head to bed...

Here are two more that I did tonight. I really need to figure out this scanner! Ugh!