Monthly Archives: September 2012

Style Review aka S.H.O LOAD blog hop

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Welcome blog-hoppers to the land of random posts, and too long videos!

Ha.

Sorry. I’ve been staring at iMovie all evening, and I think it’s made me a bit loopy.

If you’re blog-hopping, you should have just come from Alison C.’s blog. If you’re starting here, don’t forget to check out everyone else’s blogs.

Lynnette
Leslie
Katrina
Kelli P.
Alison D.
Cathy H.
Dani
Heather H.
Alison C.
Heather D.  (wait that’s me, you’re already here!) (Welcome!)
Danielle H.

I’m not going to tell you how to prepare. I’ve already done that. Most of you are old hands at LOAD by now anyway. You’ve all found your way to LOAD in one way or another, and found a very welcoming community. You’ve figured out how to make it work for you, and why you keep coming back to this fun and rewarding challenge.

You’ve got this challenge mastered.

That’s wonderful.

There’s more though. Have you gone back and looked at how LOAD has changed you? Or, perhaps to be more specific, how LOAD has changed your scrapbooking? I thought it might be interesting, and put together this slide show of most of my stuff. It’s not everything, not by a long shot, but it is a significant chunk. It’s interesting to see the evolution from my very simple first page, through Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life and Everyone Can Write a Little classes, and Stacy Julian’s Library of Memories class, to my first of many LOAD challenges.

They’re all in there. Please forgive the length and the endlessly repeating piano loop. It was either that or banjos. That’s what I had to work with in iMovie.

You may want to go visit Danielle H. first, and then come back to watch this. The piano may put you to sleep.

Big Ideas

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One of the things I love about scrapbooking is that it’s not really about the paper. It’s not even about the photos or the stories. In many ways it’s a philosophy, at least it is for me.

Scrapbooking is a way for me to think about the here and now as, not perfect, but just right. It’s a way for me to appreciate and save the little pieces of life that matter. The hugs and hands held, the silly stories and the stories that make you cry.

I have known from a very young age that life is impermanent and imperfect. Every hug could be the last one, every day is vastly different from the day before, and from what I thought it might be or even could be.

Maybe that’s why I love the way Lain Ehmann and Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske teach scrapbooking. And the lesson from Amy Sorenson in this year’s Big Idea Festival at Big Picture Classes is another one of those perfect, deep reasons that empowers and drives my creativity.

Amy talked about how we’re always looking for that happily ever after moment: that moment when everything is perfect, or everything is done, or every piece is in place in order to begin some new project.

The thing is, there is no happily ever after. There’s no point in time that’s perfect or just right. There’s only right now, and that cliff right over there that you need to jump off of to get started and do. If you never try something, you will never fail, but you will also never succeed. And if you don’t look around, take the plunge, do the uncomfortable scary thing, the only thing you’ll have to look back on are regrets.

What’s more important? A life filled with safety and sameness, or one filled with challenges and love? It’s so easy to live the first. I aspire and try for the second. I don’t always succeed, but that’s good. At least I am trying.

And every once in a while, my scrapbooker’s eye catches messages from the world around me that remind me how wonderful and precious every moment is.

Where’ve you been?

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Oh wait, that should probably be “where’ve I been?”

Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or hang out on ScrapHappy, you probably know where I’ve been. Moving!

We said goodbye to our lovely house in the Pine Hills, and our wonderful neighbors, and moved a whole 3.5 miles away to Guilderland. Except the post office tells us we’re still in Albany. 😀

Hey, this way my husband gets to say he’s still in Albany, and I get a different school district. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Albany. It just wasn’t a good fit for my geeky, pun-loving, history adoring no.1 son.

So. We moved.

Instead of living in a 100+ year old house with a decidedly arts and crafts bent, we’re living in a mid-century split level (if one step difference counts as a split level) with an upstairs.
We’ve got a garage and a driveway. That means room for 5, count them, 5! cars. As opposed to renting a parking spot across the street. Five steps to get into the house, instead of 15! No sidewalk to shovel. Instead I have a driveway. Which, since I won’t have the whole neighborhood trooping over it before it even stops snowing, will be much easier to shovel. Since I have no stairs!

Although, I thought the heavy, clay filled soil at our old house was bad, the soil here is even worse- it’s all sand. Jonathan and his compost pile have their work cut out for them.

We miss our old neighbors. We’ve somehow managed to go the whole summer without getting together, which is sad. At least we have some wonderful, welcoming new neighbors. I really hope I can manage to introduce the old and new soon. I know! Party at my house! After we get the kitchen remodeled.

Now that’s exciting!

(Oh, and check out my new craft room!)