random reflections

We're Off!!

Today is my birthday, and I'm celebrating in airports! We leave at noon for JFK, and fly to Istanbul around dinner time. We've been preparing for this trip for several months, and we're as ready as we could possibly be. I've read some great books, and realize that five days in Istanbul is not nearly enough time to see everything I'd love to see. By the time we reach Santorini, I'm quite sure we'll be ready for a few restful days hiking and staring out at the Mediterranean.

Nearly a month ago I made a travel journal for the trip. I started with a small Five Star notebook and with just one Flair button, a label maker and some Washi tape transformed it into a travel journal.

I have a pre-trip section where I've taken notes from my reading, pasted in some pages from some travel books, and stored some maps in the pockets inside the front cover. It's nice and small and easily fits into my carry-on bag, but it has lots of pages for keeping track of what we see and do. I edged each section with a piece of Washi Tape. I got that idea while blog hopping, but I can't remember where.

It will be easy to carry this with us as we explore, and I'll have lots of information right at hand.

Because I'll be away for my birthday, I've been celebrating with some friends ahead of time. I thought I'd share some fun photos. My friend, Karen, and I team-taught for four years. (The best four years of my teaching career.) We got a reputation for being incredibly alike, often coming to school dressed nearly identically, ie. a khaki skirt and a black tee-shirt. One day, a fifth-grader raised her hand and asked if we called one another at night to plan our outfits! Our three initials are the same, our anniversaries are both the the 28th of the month, and we both have son-in-laws named Adam. So we were amused when we opened gifts at dinner last week. Check out the color combination on Karen's gift to me, and my card for her.

Her card, opened AFTER we ordered our wine.

Our gifts:

Before I sign off, I thought I'd also share my crafty friend, Mary's, gift and card to me. Couldn't be more coordinated.

I've given a lot of thought about blogging on this trip. I've loved Alexa's tutorials about scrapping on the road, but I'm just not confident enough in my skills to do that in a time-efficient way. So I've decided to let go of the internet while we're gone, and concentrate on the experience which I'm sure is a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I'll be checking email so I'm not overwhelmed by a stuffed inbox when I return, but beyond that I'll be checking in with all of you on my return.  Here's hoping for sunny skies and amazing sights!

Weekend Recap

I had originally planned for this to be at least a two-part blog post, but the weekend proved busier than I expected. Friday our niece, Grace, graduated from the University of Buffalo. She is a fabulous artist, and spent one semester in Florence, Italy studying art, but her major is accounting. She's ready now to start studying for her CPA license which turns out to be quite an involved process. This summer she'll be interning here in Rochester with a large accounting firm. We celebrated with a party in Buffalo Friday night.

Her brother was here from Oregon, and her sister from Vermont, so I thought a family photo was in order.

Here's the card I made to celebrate this big event. It's a close copy to one Nicole Heady created for the release of this stamp set.

UB's colors are gray and blue. I tried to make it a bit more feminine by adding a couple of rhinestone starrs. All the stamps are from Papertrey Ink's For the Graduate. Once every year or so I'm very glad to have a nice graduation set. 

Unexpectedly, we got a break in the rainy weather Saturday afternoon. It was chilly, but sunny, so we headed to the Lilac Festival to grab a sandwich for our dinner. I was wrong in my earlier post, there aren't 500 bushes, but 500 varieties of lilacs on over 1200 bushes! Here are a couple more shots now that the lilacs are at peak.

While we were at the graduation party Matt arrived for the weekend. We had a nice visit on Saturday. Sunday I hosted a brunch after church for Tracy's mom and sister and her family. Matt, Skylar, and Betsy came to visit as well.

I served Deb's Egg Boats---always a big hit.

And Hummingbird Cupcakes for dessert.

Here's Miss Skylar.

And with Betsy.

I had a lot of fun making Mother's Day cards, and used a template from Rebecca Cooper at Simple As That to make some bookmarks for Sarah and Betsy. I don't think Betsy is a big reader, but Sarah certainly is, and they were too cute not to do. Both women loved them.

I recently acquired a few Gelatoes from Faber-Castell that I wanted to try out. The flowers & leaves on Betsy's card was colored with some of the metallic Gelatoes with shading done with the Faber-Castell markers. I'm not a convert yet, but I'll be giving them another try or two soon. I couldn't get a photo that showed the sheen of the metallic Gelatoes.

The flower and leaves are from Papertrey's "Friends Til the End" set, and the sentiment from the stamp set included with May's card kit from Simon Says. The ribbon is ages old from my stash.

My mother-in-law's card was made with a fun product from the card kit as well.

This embossed card front panel came with the kit. I backed it with a dotted paper by A Muse, and added more flowers from Papertrey's "Rosie Posie." A bottle of pink Perfect Pearls was also in the kit, and I used it to add centers to the embossed flowers.

Sarah's more a fan of clean and simple, but all the stamps for her card also came in the May kit. I love the sketched banner, and have seen several cards around blogland where stamps like these are overlapped. The papers are all from Papertrey Ink.

One of the things I like about the Simon Says kits is how versatile they are. These are all quite different cards, and yet many of the supplies came from the one kit.

I hope you had a fabulous Mother's Day! Betsy celebrated later in the day with her family, and Matt, Tracy, and I had dinner on Consesus Lake. When we made the reservations, we were hoping to eat outside, but there was actually snow in the air for a few minutes yesterday. But I got my required mother and son photo after dinner before the weather turned nasty again.

Thanks for sticking with me on a rather long, photo-heavy post. I have one more post to go up before we leave tomorrow, and one scheduled while we're away, but it's likely to be very quiet here for the next two weeks.

 

 

Liberate Your Art Blog Hop

Kat Sloma has hosted a Liberate Your Art postcard swap for several years now. This year there were over 200 people signed up for the swap. This is my second year to participate, and I've enjoyed it more than ever this year. Not only is it fun to send your work out in the world, it's great fun to find out where it landed as well as receiving postcards from others. This year I've made several nice connections with folks who sent me art, and folks who received mine. 

Here are the two postcards I sent out to the world. The top is a photograph of the benches at the Pentagon Memorial and the quote I wrote on the back was "Lest we forget." The second one was taken at the Oregon Sand Dunes State Park, and the quote was, "When you stand alone, you realize what you have in you."  I know two of my cards ended up in the UK and one in Texas. I hope I'll find out more today on the blog hop.

The first postcard to arrive came from Cathy in Arkansas with the quote "Let the rays of your heart shine on all who pass by." Her beautiful flower with a bee certainly shines brightly.

Another lovely flower arrived next. The quote read, " Beauty surrounds us." Sadly there was no other message so I don't know where it came from or who sent it. Perhaps I'll find out today.

This stunning image came from Andrea. You can find more of her photography here. The quote on the back reads, "In the end, it is not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away." How true!

The fourth beautiful postcard to arrive came from Shannon in Richmond, VA.

The final postcard arrived from Helga in the Netherlands. I love how unique it is.  The quote by Twyla Tharp reads, "Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." 

And last, but certainly not least is the beautiful piece of art from Kat.

You can find a list of all those participating in the blog hop here. It's sure to be inspiring and interesting!

 

 

More photos - 52/50: Week 19

There's a lot happening here this weekend so I knew I needed to get my link up to Kent's Project 52 earlier than usual.

Although I expect to love my new lens, my 50mm/1.4 will always be my favorite lens. This project gets me out there using it, and finding new ways to use it. I was surprised at what great landscape shots it took in Oregon. My favorite shot with the 50mm is to open it up wide and shoot in close. It's almost always sharp and pretty. (Although this week the two shots I took of a beautiful magnolia blossom were both too soft.)

I walked to Highland Park early in the week. I knew the lilacs were starting to bloom, and the annual Lilac Festival begins tomorrow. If you want some peace and quiet in the part, that's not the time to visit. We love to go over at least one night to grab dinner from one of the food carts or tents, listen to some music, and admire the lilacs, but it's not great for photography. All but one shot this week came from the park.

Every year there's a pansy bed, always planted in some kind of pattern. This year's is the most unusual; it's planted to create a large white arrow!

A shot of the park. It's even more beautiful now than it was earlier in the week. My friend and I drove by after dinner last night, and it was stunning. There are over 500 lilac bushes. You can smell them from the car.

This is my pick for the week. Not a lilace after all, and worse yet, I'm not sure what kind of tree it is.

Here's one last photo. This one is of our street at the far end that goes into the Colgate Divinity School property.

It seemed like a long wait for spring this year, but it's always worth waiting for.

 

 

 

A Road Trip

Last week I received an email from Tamron with quite a nice rebate available on their highly rated 18-270 lens. I've been debating and debating about what lenses to take with me on our trip next week, and decided to investigate. The folks at my local camera shop (who are very reliable) rated this one highly, and so I splurged and bought it. I'm quite sure I'll sell my older zoom lens when we return. It's been a wonderful lens but it is a bit larger, quite a bit heavier, and does not include such a nice wide angle. My "friend" at the camera shop suggested I try it out and be sure it was working properly before I cut off the UPC code for the rebate. I didn't have to ask Tracy twice if he'd be willing to go on a road trip to see what the lens could do. But I did treat him to breakfast out before we took off.

We headed toward the Finger Lakes. Tracy know all the odd roads to wander down so I got some nice shots before we got to Canandaigua Lake. The first stop was at the Erie Canal park in Pittsford. There's a lovely pond as well as the canal.

18mm

100mm

170 mm

And a shot of the canal because it was so pretty.

18mm

Tracy spotted the great light on these silos. I took several shots at different focal lengths, but this is my favorite.

270mm

By chance we happened upon a place called Upland Blog. 

18mm

I was pleased to discover that by zooming in with the lens I could get a very shallow depth of field as well.

270 mm

Another favorite shot from the trip is this one of the Canandice Methodist Church Bell Tower.

92 mm

Our destination was Canandaigua Lake. These shots were all taken from about the same spot.

18 mm

50mm

76 mm

This lens has gotten a lot of testimonials about being a great all-around lens, especially for travel. I think it will do just fine. I'll take my 50mm lens as well, as I never travel with just one lens in case something goes wrong. But now I won't need to take my wide-angle as well. We're packing light--just a carry-on suitcase and a tote/messager bag for each of us for a two week trip, so I'm glad to have one less thing to add to my bag! 

Better Late . . .

I missed Story Telling Sunday yesterday. I’m not quite sure how it happened as it was on my To Do list all week. Suddenly, it was Sunday afternoon, the photos were not taken, and we were due at a birthday celebration. This wonderful celebration of Precious Things is hosted by Sian at From High in the Sky each month. Here's her description of the project:

Pick Your Precious is about celebrating the little things you love: those souvenirs, bits and pieces, things from your past you can't bear to throw out. You know, the special little something you have tucked away in a drawer or up on a shelf? Or the thing you  love most in a room? Or the object you would save if you knew you had to leave the country? Your favourite things.

Furniture is one of the few things which has been handed down to me from my father’s family. I’ll be sharing another one of the pieces later this year, but today I thought I’d share the little red chair that was given to my father when he was a child. It’s been sitting in my living room for many a year. I love it’s red color, and the fact that the original finish is still on it.

Both my children sat in the chair, and often I have had a stuffed animal or hand-made doll sitting it as decoration. Recently I’ve left it empty thinking Skylar or Caleb might like it when they are here to visit.

They, however, are much more interested in the stools that were hand-painted for them by a friend.

 Perhaps one day they’ll be more interested, and I’m quite sure Sarah or Matt will be happy to inherit it one day. The truth is I’m not quite ready to give it up!

 

52/50 Week 18

This week's photos are a little of this and a lot of spring. We've had an entire week of above average temperatures and all-day sunshine. It's been glorious, and according to our favorite meteorologist it's going to last most of the coming week as well.

Sunday Tracy and I walked to Park Ave. for breakfast. As we passed our neighbor, Marge's, house we stopped by her garage sale. She's about to enter the Peace Corp for two years serving in Moldova. I've been looking for a working vintage typewriter for awhile, and she had one. I was happy to take it off her hands.

Monday night we hosted our duplicate bridge group. When I asked for a dessert suggestion, Tracy was quick to reply, "Cathy's cake." Our friend brought this chocolate praline cake last month and it was divine. You can find the recipe here.

Although I took a lot of photos this week, most of them were with my iPhone on my daily walks. The rest of the 52/50 photos came from our yard.

This photo of our Korean Pear tree is my pick for the week. 

More photo inspiration can always be found at Kent Weakley's P52 Project.

Big Birthday Wishes

 Here's one final card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash celebration.

 

This is one of those cards that had multiple iterations before it was done. I wanted to use the new Wonderful Words: Birthday die as well as the patterned papers from Lawn Fawn's Daphne's Closet that came with the Simon Says March card kit. I tried a lot of different ideas, but finally ended up with a birthday banner and a card I'm quite happy with. The card stock (all Bazzill except for Neenah Solar White) came from the kit as well. 

The banner dies are Papertrey Ink's Countdown banners folded in the middle, and I selectively stamped Big And Wishes from two different sets:  Birthday Bash and 2012 Birthday Tags. 

Spring has finally sprung here, and it's simply gorgeous. I've managed to walk over ten miles in the last several days, walking when I normally would have driven---to the library on Friday, a walk through the park on Saturday, to breakfast with Tracy on Sunday, and to meet a friend for lunch this afternoon. So good to be outside again instead of on the treadmill!

 

Happy Birthday Betsy!

This week was Betsy's birthday, and her main gift was a gift certificate. I used one of the Fancy Pants envelopes in the April Simon Says kit to create a card for her. This turned out to be one of my favorite cards created with the kit. 

Using the patterned papers from the kit, I die cut the flower with Papertrey Ink's "Beautiful Blooms 1" and the leaves with "Tender Leaves" by Memory Box. I love the way the leaves are embossed at the same time they are die cut. The button from MME "Follow My Heart" wasn't in the kit, but was just the perfect center for the flower and I threaded it with a thin black ribbon. The border was another of the patterned papers and a bit of black cardstock. The sentiment came from "Birthday Basics" by Papertrey Ink.

I'm linking this up to Simon Says "Anything Goes" and to CASual Friday's Birthday Bash challenge. (That challenge couldn't have come at a better time for me!)

52/50: Signs of Spring

We've had several days of warmer weather, and it looks like spring has arrived. These photos were taken on Monday when I walked to the park to see what was in bloom. Tracy and I walked through the park again today, but I had my wide-angle lens on so none of today's photos will work for this project. It's amazing, though, how much more has blossomed in just a few days.

Our street dead-ends at the Colgate Divinity School property, and I often walk across their lawn on my way to the park. Not many signs of spring here, but I love the way the beautiful building stands out against the clear blue sky.

Not many of the magnolias were in bloom on Monday, but almost half of them were today.

The current challenge at Image City is to take a photo with the camera no more than four feet from the ground. I'm finding it a very difficult task. These daisies are very tiny IRL.

Here's this week's pick. Highland Park is known for it's extensive collection of lilacs. They are just beginning to bud, and should be right at peak the second week in May when the Lilac Festival begins. I'm linking this up at P52.