... funny things are everywhere

Catch-up post... and Broadapalooza

So it's been a crazy month and a half since I last blogged.

The school year finished amid the usual June frenzy... the boys had great report cards, but not all went as smoothly as I would have hoped. Still, we got through it, and we are now settling into the comfortable pace of summer holidays.

Thomas turned 13 and is playing squash for the better part of the summer. There may be a wee bit of tennis thrown in as well.

James is playing a lot of tennis and hopefully competing in a few tournaments as well.

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And I started the summer with a trip out to Saskatoon with Cynthia, Carolyn and Katie... to visit Michelle and her family. Broadapalooza 2013. We ate, drank, laughed, sang karaoke, saw The Hip in concert, ate meat off giant swords... told stories, sought advice and rejuvenated our souls for yet another year.

Every girl should have a bunch of Broads in her life.

Love you guys! BNIASW

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This past week...

So life is unpredictable much of the time, and many days I feel like I'm in over my head... and the past week has been a bit both and then some.

Mike's father has been in the hospital. He's better than he was but not completely better. The boys have been worried about their grandpa, as have we adults. Our family has been in and out of the hospital to visit, but we're hoping the next visit will be at his home. Soon.

Work was insane this week. Again. I suspect I will be able to day this every Friday between now and October.

*sigh*

Last weekend, Jamesie and I had breakfast with Steph's family-- and then we had a fun side trip to Chapters. The baby, Jackson, slept in his stroller the entire time, but at least I got to see him. Soooooo cute and tiny.

Card for baby. Madi at Chapters.

was it that long ago?!

My friend, Katie, and her family came to Ottawa last spring, and they came over to our place to hang out for an evening. We barbecued and drank 50 - well, I didn't drink 50, but others partook. The kids played Wii and generally got along well, which was pretty amazing when you consider the fact that my boys each had his nose stuck in a book, completely ignoring our guests about 10 minutes after being introduced to them. lol

This photo has been on my desk since a few days after Katie's visit. That was in April. As I was working with it yesterday, I had this sinking feeling... was it really that long ago when they were here visiting? Where has the half-year between then and now gone?!

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To answer my own question (and to reassure myself that time is not slipping away from me), this is what we've done since that April weekend.

• I went on a trip to Hong Kong and China.
• The boys finished off their school year with lots of year-end activities.
• Summer was filled with tennis camps for James and a mix of tennis, Boys and Girls Club and sports camps for Thomas.
• We went to Toronto to meet up with some friends.
• The four of us embarked on our annual road trip to Nova Scotia.
• I played a lot of tennis with the boys.
• The boys started school again.
• The boys started tennis lessons again.

And here we are... in the middle of October. *sigh*

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It's Saturday morning, and Mike's just informed me that we're only 10 minutes away from the time we need to be out the door. Thomas is off to his tutor's house, and James and I are going to hit some tennis balls.

Thanks for dropping by to visit. Have a great weekend, my friends!

random images

Just like my real-life (messy) desktop, my computer desktop is cluttered with stuff. Not so good. So in an effort to clear some of it off, I present to you a blog post with random images and the stories behind them.

(And right after I click the "publish" button on typepad, I will delete these files from my computer. Promise.)

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* my friend, Caroline, and me

Jamesie and I dropped by to say Happy Birthday to Caroline last weekend. It's been almost 12 years since I started working for Health Canada, and she was one of the first on-the-job friends I made there. We don't see each other that often any more, but there are friendships where the long periods of time between visits don't seem to detract from the quality of the friendship. :)

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* click to see a larger image

This reminds me of (sssssssh... don't tell him I said this) my 8 year-old, James. As hard as he tries, he's not much of a swimmer. I think it's because he has no body fat whatsoever, so he doesn't float at all... and his skinny little arms are not strong enough to propel him through the water. On top of all of that, he's tense in the water, so he's more upright than horizontal, so yes, he looks a lot like Hammie in this cartoon. Not a pretty sight. lol

Actually, I'm debating whether or not to do anything about this. I'm not sure if another session or two of lessons would help or not. Personally, I'm just not ready to fight the fight of getting him there. And he can  swim the 20-metre length of the pool at the club, so I'm thinking that's all I need for now.

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* my dad in an electronics store in HK

I love this photo of my dad that I snapped while trying out lenses in an upscale electronics store in Hong Kong. The colour balance is still a bit wonky (I'm still working on my photoshop skills), but I love the smile on his face. I am so very happy that he will be retiring officially next spring. I'm hoping that'll mean he'll have more time available to come up to Ottawa to visit... and work on little projects around my house! ;)

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* Thomas (at age 2) - completely focused on his book

I love that Mike and I helped foster our kids' love of books so early in life. And that passion for reading has not faded at all over the years. James is hooked on all sorts of fiction (Rick Riordan's books are his latest love), and Thomas loves the reading collections of factual information (history, geography, science, world records, etc.), but there's a good deal of cross-over in their interests too. Both of them love Wimpy Kid, Star Wars, Owl magazine, movie novelizations... and oh so much more.

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* a cool mirror in a restaurant in China

I took this picture, thinking it was a really interesting design that could easily be translated to a scrapbook page or a card. I think I'm going to clear off my desk and put this at the top of my To Create list. :)

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Well, there it is. Five images I can delete from my desktop already. Phew! Only 250 images to go! lol

a page for Nathalie

I made a lot of pages last year (over 150), and I was saying to Mike that, although I enjoyed the creative process, I felt I didn't really need that many pages for my own albums... sometimes there just aren't that many meaningful stories to tell.

Fast forward to January 2010 and Lain's invitation to participate in LO a Day again, and I found myself wondering how I could scrapbook a LO a day without compromising the quality of the stories being told. I decided to enlist a few friends to help me out... they've supplied me with photos and a story, and I'm supplying the paper, glue and creativity.

This is my first one of the month, done with borrowed pictures and stories:

 

That's Nathalie's daughter, Laetitia. The journalling talks about how eager she is to learn new things these days. She's showing off the first cake she'd ever baked in the picture. I love that I got to use some of the older BasicGrey papers in my stash of supplies... oh, and the butterfly punch too! :)

Thanks for letting me play with your photo, Nath. I'll have to hold your layout hostage until you guys come to town to visit us again. I hope it'll be soon. xoxo

sing a song

James and I love to sing together. He's into a lot of musical movies (Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, etc.) and he also likes the upbeat popular music I have on my iTunes. I hit play on a favourite song, find the lyrics on the internet, and we sing at the top of our lungs. He and I did a mean rendition of Brandi Carlile's The Story a couple of years ago. I love singing with Jamesie... I'm thinking we really need to get a karaoke machine or something. :)

Guess what our favourite song is these days?

* supplies: Bazzill cardstock, American Crafts patterned papers (black, red), American Crafts rub-on letters (Jack TradeMarks and Jane MiniMarks)

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<yawn> It's late. Tomorrow's Wednesday, the middle of the week. Yay! That much closer to the weekend. Thank goodness!

random holiday things

Well, I'm way too tired to compose a coherent post that flows smoothly from one topic to the next, but there's stuff I want to share here, so consider yourself warned. Holiday-themed brain dump ahead.

Bought an awesome Christmas album called Holiday Spirits from Straight No Chaser from the iTunes store on the weekend. I loved it, especially the unexpected touch of the 80s on this track:

As I sang along with different renditions of Christmas carols all weekend, I was reminded of how much I loved to sing when I was younger. I sang in both junior and senior choirs at church. I sang in Brownies and Guides. I sang all the time, and now, I hardly ever get to sing. I'm going to have to find a way to remedy that. :)

We had a family dinner at John and Jackie's on Sunday. It was the third night of Hanukkah, and the boys were both really excited to help light the candles. All three families (Mark's, Bill's and Jackie's) had their menorahs on the table, so there were plenty of candles to light.

 

I went to my friend, Marcia's house for a holiday celebration on Monday evening. It was the first women's night she's hosted in a while. We used to get together every month, but it's been different since one of the members of the inner circle of friends was diagnosed with cancer 13 months ago and then lost her battle with cancer earlier this fall. I almost didn't go... I had lots of excuses lined up (I had to study... it was snowing... Thomas needed me to work through a few things with him...) but in the end, I decided I needed a hug, and I needed to give hugs to try to move past the sadness I felt. I'm not sure how successful I was in moving past the sadness, but I think it was a step in the right direction.

I love the colour in Marcia's hair... I wonder if I could do that in mine. :)

 

I haven't really had a chance to scrapbook lately... things just got busy on the weekend. We took the boys shopping for food for their school's canned food drive. They chose food from all the different food groups, and then they posed for this picture:

 

I printed a similar photo (one without the goofy faces) so they could tell John and Jackie about what they did. In fact, I told the boys that we were donating to the food bank in honour of John and Jackie instead of buying them a gift that they didn't really need. Seeing how J&J are constantly volunteering for one community organization or another, they love this idea and appreciated the gesture. The boys really enjoyed it too, and I think we'll make a habit of this, even when there's not a special campaign going on at their school.

Not much else happening in my world lately. I'm hoping I'll have time to get in the spirit of the season soon. I'm starting to run out of time. Yikes!

snow storm and Chinese food

Okay, we had our first real snow of the season, and wow, what  a LOT of snow we had! The school buses were cancelled, but the boys wanted to go to school anyway... because in Ontario, the schools stay open, even when the buses don't run. Go figure! Oh well, Thomas and James had a good day with a lot of outdoor play, and I managed to get to work for a few hours in the morning before heading back to the school for pick-up.

It snowed all day here, and it didn't stop until well past dinnertime, but that didn't stop a group of friends and I from getting together for dinner at the Chinese restaurant down the street. We talked and laughed and ate and laughed some more. I love these friends. A lot of them are people I met at a local playgroup while I was on maternity leave with James... six years later, and we all still keep in touch. Times like this, I think I need to slow down and hang out with my friends more often, but that would mean they would need to do the same. It's challenging trying to strike a balance between family and work obligations and girlfriend time. Hopefully we'll be able to do this again without waiting 18 months!

I wish I'd taken a photo... I had my camera, but by the time I remembered, it didn't feel right. Sometimes I have a hard time being "that crazy camera lady."

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You know, there are days when I'm totally in LOVE with digital, like the day I made this.

 

Then there are other days when I feel like a total digital dunce, like yesterday when I ended up having to print the photo collage from my digital page in progress, and then go back to my paper and glue supplies to finish it. The good news is, one of my FAVOURITE companies will allow me to have the best of both worlds... as of  tomorrow, BasicGrey will have digital scrapbooking supplies. I am so STINKIN' excited. Yay!

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Okay, it's way too late. I've gotta get myself to bed. Night, all! :)

Hurray for Jenn!

My very hard-working LSS owner, Jenn, had her store featured in the winter issue of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. I took this picture of her last week when I dropped by to visit. Oh, and to place an order for a package of orange peel textured Bazzill cardstock. I happened to run out of it the same day that Cathy Zielske posted that she'd run out.

:)

 

Anyway, a huge congratulations to Jenn, whose store celebrated its second anniversary in mid-November! I'm always amazed at how much scrappy goodness she can cram into the limited space she has. And it NEVER feels crowded or cluttered in there. :)

Now, if only I could convince her to carry some American Crafts paper, I'd be in HEAVEN. 

*** Psssst Jenn, the AC Letterbox line is just so pretty... you KNOW you want it! ;)

really old scrapbook supplies

When was the last time you used your really, really old scrapbook supplies on a page? For that matter, how long do you own something before you consider it to be old?

There was a time, when I very first started scrapbooking, I thought that anything older than a year was old. My shopping habits have changed though, and I don't buy nearly as much paper as I used to, so I'd have to say that most of my papers are at least a year old anyway... and lots of the stuff I use is more than three years old because that's how long it's been since I used to go shopping at the LSS two or more times a week. Yikes!

I've been trying to clear out some of my older supplies. It all started when my darling boy, James, gave me a birthday present of re-gifted scrapbook supplies... things he'd taken from my stash (with my permission). He was so pleased with himself that I couldn't help but smile and say thank you, but deep inside, I was cringing, knowing I had no space to put those things back into my stash. Oh well...

So the other night, when Nathalie and I were chatting on facebook, she asked me to issue a challenge for her next page. I told her I wanted her to use the following old supplies:

• Making Memories mailbox alphabets
• some eyelets
• a stamp that was at least 3 years old, and
• a bookplate

Then she got all crazy and added a bit of Chatterbox paper to the mix. Oh my! I had to go through my bag of things I was giving away to pluck out a sheet of CBX paper. Yikes!

To make things even more challenging for myself, I decided I would continue with the project I'm currently working on... it's that 8x8 gift album. I started with a blank sheet of white cardstock and wondered how the heck I was going to fit all that stuff on there.

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Not too bad.

I managed to stick to my true style (simple simple simple) and grouped things together so it didn't look as cluttered. See how the letters are all touching so it looks like one block? I stamped the "No." inside the bookplate and grouped it with the eyelets to make one cluster of embellishments. The strip of dotted Chatterbox paper served to add some colour to the page... and it mimicked the Smarties on the cupcake in the photo.

Extra supplies included a scrap of Urban Lily paper (the green circle) and the red brads. I would have used eyelets to attach the Heidi Swapp chipboard bookplate, but my old-style Crop-a-dile wouldn't reach, and it was waaaaay too late at night to use hammer my old-school eyelet setter.

My favourite part of these challenges is to see how different Nathalie's page is. Check it out here. Cool, hey?! :)

And if you're interested in seeing one of our previous challenges, you can click here or here.

Thanks for the fun, Nath! Now it's your turn to issue the next one. :)