random reflections

Ah, September!

It’s Labor Day, and the start of the school year tomorrow for most students in Rochester. Caleb started kindergarten in Illinois two weeks ago. September has always seemed like a second restart to me. I’ve been living with my One Little Word for eight months, and the list of intentions I wrote in January.

It’s a good time to reassess. Actually, I started the process in August when I became frustrated with my ability to get to some of the projects I love and have committed to, and printed out a new copy of my tracking sheet. It’s rather amazing how well this works for me.

I finally finished my #100DayProject, and only sketched once after that. My card making fell into a string of days when I made sure to have the cards I needed for August and early September.

And finally, at the end of the month, I got going on Project Life. I was nearly a year behind, but have finished all the pages for 2016 and have the title page for 2017 completed.

A lot of advance planning for the next several months is also done. I gave up on my Christmas Journal, and decided to include the holidays in the Project Life album. I think that’s probably the path of the future as well. The mail brought a package from Gossamer Blue this week. They had a Half Price sale so I bought one full kit as well as a Life Pages kit. This is only some of the goodies. I put away the stamps and several other items before I thought to take a photo.

Exercise was the biggest improvement. I scheduled a meeting with my personal trainer and started a new routine at the gym. That plus walking meant that there were only a few days in August that I wasn’t active.

Journaling didn’t happen, and it’s on the list for September. I’m trying a new eating plan which I added to the list for September and a 4 week shopping ban---only groceries, gifts, and necessities. I’ve had some serious issues with my feet, and have purchased several pairs of good shoes which allow me to wear new orthotics which were prescribed by the orthopedic surgeon. Somehow that seemed to give me leeway to go on a shopping spree.

You can see that I only missed one day of reading, and it paid off with seven books read in August, possibly the most I’ve ever read in a month. Two of my favorites were theology-based, but I can recommend two novels.

The first is our September book group book, A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. It’s a compelling story of a young man who parks his car on a dirt road, throws the keys on the dashboard, and walks into the Maine wilderness. The next time, he emerges is 27 years later. How and why that happens is the plot of the book, but much of what I loved was the author’s inclusion of the research and history of solitude. How is it that one person can thrive on total solitude, but it drives most people crazy? (Sometimes literally.)

The second book is Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but also a meditation on loneliness, solitude, memories, and grief. I've long been a fan of Gail Godwin, having enjoyed Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, and Flora, among others.

We’ve had a busy weekend. We were invited to a lovely Shabbat Dinner on Friday evening, entertained two couples here on Saturday, and went to a Fantasy Football picnic yesterday. Today has been very quiet, but there are more good things coming in the week ahead.

Project Life: August 2016

August was a very heavy photo month with a week in Nantucket. Not only were there lots of family photos, but many photos of the beautiful island. And, of course, the trip was not the only activity I wanted to capture.

Once again, I relied heavily on Tracy Larsen's Simply White photo templates, adding journaling to some of them, and a few stickers and one filler card I made with a Project Life Everyday card and a Heidi Swap clear sticker.

I buy postcards wherever we go, but rarely use them. This time I used one of a map of Nantucket which I loved. 

These pages have some of my favorite photos. Ella loves to figure things out, and spent a LONG time learning out to insert and release the buckle on the stroller. The one of Matt with the two girls is in a frame in our living room. I'm rarely a fan of selfies, but the one Nadia took of the five of us on the beach is great of everyone. The filler card at the bottom was made from a purchased notecard added to some patterned paper.

This page documents our trip to the Whaling Museum, the Cisco Brewery, our "date night," our bike rides, and a family photo taken at the Nantucket Hotel before a family dinner.

The last pocket page documents the trip to Providence, Rhode Island on our way home from Nantucket, and the other activities of the month. 

Then I added foue pages of photos that I had printed with white borders at a local camera shop. I don't really keep separate photo albums any more, so the Project Life album is where any photos that get printed are kept.

 

I still have a few pages from early in 2016 to finish embellishing, and September's pages are all planned out. Now to find time to get to them!

 

Project Life: July 2016

July was a jam-packed month, but I managed to limit my pages to two double page spreads. Madelyn Tyler was born early in July, and her arrival brought Sarah, Adam, and Caleb to Rochester for a week's visit. During that week, Tracy's mother turned 87 and we hosted a birthday picnic for her. The photos of the cousins enjoying one another both in Matt and Betsy's backyard and at the water park are some of my faves.

Once again, there are minimal embellishments. I made a filler card with some patterned paper for Madelyn's birth data, added a few stickers and made another filler card with a wood veneer word that I colored with some Orange Zest ink.

The third page documents the week Tracy's family shared a cottage on Honeoye Lake this summer. 

We had a wonderful tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin home in Buffalo, and celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I was delighted to find the teacup "button" which I added with a ticket stub for the "Alice in Wonderland" performance for a filler card. I have a little jar filled with these buttons, and rarely can find a good use for one.

Project Life: May & June 2016

We had a lovely sunny day on Friday, and tonight while watching the World Series I had time to edit the photos of the Project Life pages I completed earlier this week. May ended up being one double page spread. Both pages use journaling cards from Paislee Press' "Fresh Air."

The first page documents events in Rochester: the Lilac Festival and parade as well as a very special dinner for the 4th-5th grade girls from Cameron Ministries. 

We made an unexpected trip to Chicago in May, celebrated Mother's Day, started work on the patio plantings, and celebrated Memorial Day with a neighborhood parade and the first picnic of the season.

June was another double page spread.

We attended the opening of an exhibit on the National Parks (which celebrated their 100th Anniversary this summer) at the Eastman Museum, and had another wonderful picnic celebration for a high school graduation and Father's Day with the Adams family. There was a night of croquet with good friends as well. That was a first in so many years, neither of us could remember the last time we played. I also included a Month in Review card from Paislee Press that documented these events as well as a very busy social calendar.

The upper left photo template documents my first venture as a docent for the Landmark Society on their Home and Garden tour. We did a lot more work on our shade garden, and were back at the Eastman Museum for the first of the Summer Garden Vibes concert. I couldn't resist adding the cute photos of the girls at Pam's house after dinner, and with Pam outside their Papa's house earlier in the month.

Although I've yet to finish January-March for this year, I have completed July and August which I'll get posted in the next week or so.

 

Project Life: April 2016

I decided I was going to finish pages in whatever order was easiest, so you'll be seeing my catch-up pages here out of order for sure. The April pages covered our trip to New Orleans and didn't need too much work to complete.

I added the photo of the horse and carriage to the calendar card since that just epitomizes New Orleans for me. I love the Paislee Press template for six photos which was perfect for the shots of the street performers. The bottom left photo is of most of the family at the Jackson Brewery and is another Paislee Press template. The rest are Tracy Larsen's. I made the journaling card from our guide for the Garden District tour's business card and a couple of Jolee stickers.

The reason for our trip was our niece's wedding. I didn't take my big camera to the wedding, so there aren't many good photos. The first three are from the amazing rehearsal dinner at Randy's parents' home. The wedding photos were taken at the reception, a gorgeous restaurant set into the trees along a river. I included one of many little items from the wedding on one of the journaling cards.

I've got so many projects going right now, it's hard to figure out what to do next! I'm taking a class that meets three days a week at the University of Rochester which requires quite a bit of reading, working on the Project Life catch-up, trying to get a few cards made, trying to maintain my workout schedule, and am enrolled in Liz Steel's newest Sketching Now class. My volunteer commitments don't start for another week, so I'm trying to make good use of my time now. I'm hoping blogging won't go by the wayside. 

Project Life: October 2015

I'm plodding along with my Project Life pages, trying to keep ahead of being behind an entire year! Meanwhile, we (fortunately) continue to accumulate photos and wonderful memories, so once the summer is over I need to dedicate myself to scrapping every day! But, for now, here's another month completed.

Early in the month, we made a trip to Hyde Park for my grand-nephew's baptism, and followed it up with a day in Manchester, Vt., one of our favorite getaways. Skylar and I attended our first ZooClass at the Seneca Park Zoo---a wonderful educational program geared to 4-5 year olds. They also have a class for 2-3 year olds.

The end of the month found us in Chicago. We were lucky enough to be there for Caleb's first appearance in the Cherub Choir. I loved this shot of Sarah sitting in front of the fabulous mural at Herm's Palace in Skokie. It's my favorite place for a Chicago hot dog, a true indulgence, but delicious! By Halloween, we were home, but I included an Instagram shot of Caleb in his Halloween costume as well as the little girls around the corner with whom we went trick or treating.

While we were in Chicago, we spent a morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and I added an insert with photos to record that special event.

A gentleman kindly took a family photo of us at the zoo, which turned out to be a favorite of mine.

I finished an album after the July 2015 pages, but had never created an opening page for the album, but have gotten that finished as well. 

Most of the cards came from the Becky Higgin's Project Life "Everyday" Edition created by Paislee Press. I painted some wood veneers to spell Family, and as well as the little camera, and added some Papertrey Ink die cuts and stamps to create the date card. There's quite a bit of gold metallic accent on the cards, but it doesn't show up in the photos. I die cut the hearts with a Simon Says die and backed it with metallic gold paper to match the gold in the cards. I came across the quote somewhere on the internet a long time ago, printed it out and stuck in the album, knowing it would be great for an opening page. 

Project Life: August-September 2015

It's been almost four months since I completed a Project Life page. When I started back at it again this week, I was happily surprised to fall right back into the pleasure of reliving our lives through documenting them. I started a new album with these pages. I don't worry about doing one album a year. Whenever the album feels full enough, I move on to a new one. Several months ago, I ordered The Everyday Edition of Project Life from the Becky Higgins site, and ordered this album which I love.

It came with a plastic "page protector" with a lovely printed quote.

 

August was a quick page after many, many pages for July documenting our trip to the Canadian Rockies. I used two cards from Simply Stories "Sunshine and Happiness" set.

September was Skylar's fourth birthday, and so there had to be a page to document her wonderful birthday party. I found some perfect patterned papers and a sheet of stickers by Reminisce called "Cowgirl"last fall that took care of all the embellishment.

 

 

The second page documents a couple other photos from the party, the Fall Fest at Skylar and Ella's school, and the end of the 2015 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt. I chose six of my favorite photos from the hunt, including the hardest one to find (three flags on a flagpole). 

Here's a look at the two-page spread.

As always, I used Tracy Larsen's Simply White templates as well as templates from Paislee Press Pocket Guide #1 and All the Stripes. I used some black and white Washi tape to create two more embellishments to carry the stripes through the layout. I'm glad to be back at it again, and hope to keep going although we'll soon have a house full of company so it won't be easy to keep on track.

 

Project Life: July 2015 (Part 3)

As usual, we did a lot of advance planning before we took off on this trip. Somehow we totally missed the write-up of Sunshine Meadows in our guide books. Luckily, I picked up a brochure at the ranger's desk in Banff that proclaimed Sunshine Meadows as the #1 Hike in Canada. We would put it at #2 for a hike, and our afternoon there would be rated #3 after the Plain of Six Glaciers and our day in Yoho National Park.

To reach Sunshine Meadows, you must take a bus up to the ski lodge. We figured that once you were up there, it would be a pleasant stroll through the meadows. Not so much. It was pleasant, but it was no stroll! There were several steep inclines, and the hike around the three lakes was much more extensive than we expected. Not only are the views stunning, but the wildflowers were amazing. No photo came even close to capturing how beautiful it was. I cut a piece of the map apart and used it in the spread. The hike actually passes through parts of both Alberta and British Columbia.

The photos on the left-hand side of the next page are of Moraine Lake, and on the right of the first hike we took as we drove up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper.

The journaling says that we aren't typically "WOW" people, but that was the operative word as we drove the 145 miles from Lake Louise to Jasper.

Our Glacier Adventure Tour was one of the most touristy things we did on the trip, but one of the most fun thanks to Ness, our amazing and hilarious driver.

We spent four days in Jasper, one of them was actually the day of the Glacier Adventure since we drove back down the Icefields Parkway the next morning to catch the first tour.

I'm not sure how we found our accommodations at Pyramid Lake, but it was a stunning setting about five miles out of town. The hike through the Valley of Five Lakes wasn't on our list until a ranger at the Icefields Centre told us about it. We ended up hiking with a young couple from Edmonton, and had a really great morning despite the gloomy skies.

Really, my only disappointment on the whole trip was not getting to see Maligne Lake. We drove out there twice, and it was foggy and rainy both times. The weather in Jasper was truly fickle. At one point, it was raining in front of us, but when you looked in the rear view mirror, it was sunny behind us! After hiking the Moose Lake trail in the rain the last day of our time in the parks, we gave up and decided to head west on Route 16. We knew we were headed east to Edmonton on our way back to Calgary so we thought we take a drive in the other direction. Little did we know that we'd end up in Robson National Park with a good view of the tallest mountain in Canada.

I didn't have enough photos of our day in Edmonton or the last day in Calgary before heading back to Chicago, so I ended July right here. By the time we left Chicago, we were into August, and those pages will have to wait until we get home from the current trip! I don't think I'll have anywhere near this many photos from a trip in the near future. It was an amazing three weeks. We hiked nearly 75 miles, and saw nearly everything we hoped to see, but we'd be happy to return if the opportunity presented itself.

Project Life: July 2015 (Part 2)

Originally we didn't plan to visit the southeastern corner of Glacier called Two Medicine. But when I read about it in the guide book as we were driving to Missoula, we changed our minds and spent a morning and early afternoon hiking in Two Medicine. We were glad we did, and the drive from Two Medicine to Waterton National Park in Alberta was nearly as beautiful as the Going to the Sun road.

We had hoped to do a lot of hiking in Waterton, but the weather wasn't very cooperative. We did get to take the cruise from Waterton to Goat Haunt and it was just beautiful. The view of the lake is from the Prince of Wales Hotel which sits up on a cliff overlooking Waterton. We had a lovely dinner there. There's also a photo of the cut line which I knew nothing about, but explained in this post.

The number one item on our bucket list was a hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers in Lake Louise. It got a two-page spread.

A good friend of mine told me not to miss a chance to visit Yoho National Park and Emerald Lake. It was great advice, and our day in Yoho was our second best day of the trip. Emerald Lake is even more beautiful than Lake Louise, and we went from there to Takkawa Falls which we were told was the second highest falls in Canada. When I did a bit of research, however, it ranks 45th in British Columbia. It's beautiful, nonetheless, and we hiked from there to Laughing Falls. All in all, we hiked nearly 11 miles that day and by the time we got to the Truffle Pig for dinner we were ready for a great meal.

I have to admit to being really excited to actually see loons on this trip. When we travel to the Adirondacks, I sometimes hear loons, but I'd never seen any. On this trip we saw them on several lakes, but I finally got a photo on Emerald Lake. The last two photos on this page are just the first two from another wonderful afternoon at Sunshine Meadows. More about that, next time.

Project Life: May

It probably won't happen again, but I finished the May Project Life spread on June 1!!! Happy dance, here. It was pretty easy since there wasn't any travel and I never took any photos on Mother's Day or my birthday. 

Although I've been keeping up with my Project 365 on my iPhone and getting each day into the Collect app, this is the first month I've exported the photos and printed the cards. I like them a lot. There's lots of white space, the captions and date are great for Project Life as well.

When you've survived a long, cold, snowy winter spring flowers are such a pleasure! We spent lots of time outdoors in May and it was a treat.

I found these beautiful pink and purple sequins by Pretty Pink Posh when I was in Buffalo a week ago, and knew right away I wanted to make a shaker card for this layout. When I carried the album downstairs to take the photo, they arranged themselves in a lilac shape---how convenient! I really like the Paislee Press Calendar cards as titles, and may continue that again next year.

I found two tiny wood veneers in my stash and combined them with a narrow piece of washi tape by Little B to embellish the journaling card.

We have the most amazing hedge of spirea on our property line. Every June I'm amazed by how beautiful it is; I wish it lasted longer. I included Collect cards with two of my favorite photos of Skylar and Ella from this month, my meeting with Melissa in Buffalo, and my new bicycle basket--my birthday gift from Sarah, Adam, and Caleb. I almost always change up the mantle decorations for each season, and include a photo of the summer themed mantle. A new addition are the three candles under the wreath which I purchased in April from Crate and Barrel. I should have taken a closer shot of them. I layered two colors of sand in the bottom of each, and am really happy with how it turned out. The filler card was made with a piece of patterned paper from my stash (unknown). I cut the camera image from a Cocoa Daisy filler card and used some dimensional tape to pop it up a bit.

June will likely be a bit more involved since we'll be on the road again, and there are several big events planned.

I'm still plugging away at purging. I took four big bags of supplies to the charity shop today, but still haven't totally finished going through my studio to say nothing of tackling the basement.