This has been such a fantastic Christmas season!
John and I had so much happening that it was a little crazy, and a little tiring at times, but was a lot of fun!
We got to see a lot of our friends and spend quality time with them, which I am thinking more now-a-days is the best Christmas gift ever!
We had Nic and Jen over to help decorate our tree and our home. I so like that new tradition we've started. Then a week later we went to their house and returned the favor.
We went to Roger's Gardens in Newport and walked around with my good friend Edana and we took our holiday pictures in some very gorgeous areas!
I got to scrapbook at Theresa's House and Pinecone this month, I always enjoy myself at each place.
We went to the Newport Harbor Boat Parade with the Geekitude group as well as hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange with them at out house. (I'm thinking we need to have a family version of that next year too!)
And we also attended a Geekitude Festivus activity too!
Christmas eve was a lot of fun with the family at John's Aunt Dawn's house and then later at Nic's house.
And of course Christmas day with John's family here at home and calling friends and family who are away. It has been such a pleasant and enjoyable season this year.
I am just so thankful for my family and friends!!
Merry Christmas to everyone and sincere wishes for a safe and happy New Year!!
~Ren
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Let the Scrappin' Commence!!
I had the week before Thanksgiving off and I planned to work on a long list of things around the house. We also had an activity planned for the Sunday following Thanksgiving with our friends, Nic and Jen, to come over and spend the afternoon hanging out and help us decorate our home for the holidays. It’s a new tradition we’re starting so I wanted to have the house cleaned and ready for the fun day.
Other projects that I had planned for the week:
Get our garage organized so we could get to a few things, including the Christmas decorations.
Rework our extra room to make a designated crafting place.
And a bunch of other “smaller” projects, I had hoped to accomplish.
Monday morning I started working on my list then got completely overwhelmed.
The hardest part of big projects is figuring out where to start.
John and I had tried to make conscious efforts to keep from just throwing stuff into the garage – we had it organized at one time but over the past twelve months the plan just crumbled… so the task of cleaning it up and reorganizing it again seems daunting.
So after discussing it with John I turned my sights towards only one big task in my list of intentions. Make the designated craft space in the room upstairs.
This project would actually accomplish two things on our long-term desires, I would have a place that I could call an actual “craft area” and our dining room area would be restored to – well, a dining room area. A place where we could sit and eat without having to figure out where to put the layouts I was in the middle of, and so on. So after reassessing the battle plan I started working on it Monday night.
At first it didn’t seem too difficult. Pick things up and take it upstairs.
But then I thought, once I get it up there where is it going? So the plan of attack was to pull things out of the room to make a space to put the “new” items. So shelves got reorganized to clear off places for the boxes and baskets of accessories, embellishments, tools, etc. of my scrapbooking addiction.
Then there was the parting of things that I eliminated from the mass collection – duplicate beanie babies (how did I manage to get a duplicate dog? What am I doing with a toucan? How come I have three of the same Winnie-the-Pooh bean bag?) And other strange questions arose as I culled the herd. (The strangest things pop into my head when I’m working and distract me.)
Once that step was completed then the job of bringing things upstairs started. I lost count of how many times I went up and down our stairs. Its only 12 steps for crying out loud! After two days of moving things around and hauling stuff up to the room I felt like I had trekked up Notre Dame again – which made me smile when I thought of the happy memories of the trip…again, with the stuff popping in my head!
And if moving items to the upper level weren’t enough of a task, I then needed to organize and figure out workable storage for all the items. I had no idea how long it would take to sift through a bunch of little things. WOW, it was unbelievably time consuming! I don’t remember how many tiny pieces of approximately 1 x 2 inch scraps of paper I parted with, why was I holding on to ones that small anyway??
By Wednesday the front room and dining room were cleaned, spruced, and restored to a living space. The upstairs room now had organization and I couldn’t wait to get started scrapping in my new space. All I lacked was a table, chair, and more lighting. No worries, we planned to head out during the weekend and find them and at the same time possibly take advantage of the huge sales.
Part of my in-laws Thanksgiving Day traditions is that once the feasting is done the newspaper ads for the weekend sales come out and everyone sifts through them looking for the deals they’re willing to go early for. John and I looked through the ads for a table and chair, all the while enjoying the laughter and oohs and ahhs with everyone else. When asked by his Mom what we were looking for we told her about the previous couple days’ activities and that we needed the table and chair to complete my space. She said that it sounded like the items would be good Christmas gift ideas, but we explained that I didn’t really want to wait that long to get them. I have a goal of trying to finish the Paris project before the end of the year after all… so even though we didn’t see anything in the papers that was what I had in mind we decided that sometime that weekend we might get out and looky-loo.
We had only planned to relax and enjoy the weekend, shopping wasn’t really a top priority so we spent the couple of days after Thanksgiving prepping our home for our day with Nic and Jen to come over to help decorate. So on Saturday night when my Mom-in-law called to discuss some covert topic with John I went upstairs to work more on organizing the tiny elements in my appointed creativity area. Then John came to me needing advice about a dilemma he and his Mom couldn’t decide on. A Christmas present had been purchased for me, but she knew that I wanted it and needed it before the holiday…so what did I want more, the gift now – or then? Would I be disappointed to know early what I was getting for Christmas? Would I be upset that I didn’t have anything to open on Christmas day? These questions were posed to me and after thinking it through I decided to accept the gift early. I am more than happy to recall on Christmas morning what I’d already been gifted with. Yes, I like surprises but since I had determined what the gift was, after recalling the conversation on Thursday and John’s attempt at being cryptic but not completely covert, I was very happy to have the table brought over on Saturday night.
The table is the perfect height, and the chair is comfy! I have a foot stool that belonged to my grandmother underneath the table for when I need to elevate my legs, so there is another comfy bonus to my little sanctuary. So now my craft area is set and I have spent many happy hours there already. The space is still a little creatively messy – but it will all be put right in a while. As soon as I get another lamp I will be complete! I am so delighted with how all our hard work of getting things rearranged worked out.
Sunday was so much fun decorating the house and putting ornaments on the tree. I like the new tradition we’ve started with Nic and Jen, I hope it is one we can continue for years to come!!
Now…if we can just get the garage done…
Other projects that I had planned for the week:
Get our garage organized so we could get to a few things, including the Christmas decorations.
Rework our extra room to make a designated crafting place.
And a bunch of other “smaller” projects, I had hoped to accomplish.
Monday morning I started working on my list then got completely overwhelmed.
The hardest part of big projects is figuring out where to start.
John and I had tried to make conscious efforts to keep from just throwing stuff into the garage – we had it organized at one time but over the past twelve months the plan just crumbled… so the task of cleaning it up and reorganizing it again seems daunting.
So after discussing it with John I turned my sights towards only one big task in my list of intentions. Make the designated craft space in the room upstairs.
This project would actually accomplish two things on our long-term desires, I would have a place that I could call an actual “craft area” and our dining room area would be restored to – well, a dining room area. A place where we could sit and eat without having to figure out where to put the layouts I was in the middle of, and so on. So after reassessing the battle plan I started working on it Monday night.
At first it didn’t seem too difficult. Pick things up and take it upstairs.
But then I thought, once I get it up there where is it going? So the plan of attack was to pull things out of the room to make a space to put the “new” items. So shelves got reorganized to clear off places for the boxes and baskets of accessories, embellishments, tools, etc. of my scrapbooking addiction.
Then there was the parting of things that I eliminated from the mass collection – duplicate beanie babies (how did I manage to get a duplicate dog? What am I doing with a toucan? How come I have three of the same Winnie-the-Pooh bean bag?) And other strange questions arose as I culled the herd. (The strangest things pop into my head when I’m working and distract me.)
Once that step was completed then the job of bringing things upstairs started. I lost count of how many times I went up and down our stairs. Its only 12 steps for crying out loud! After two days of moving things around and hauling stuff up to the room I felt like I had trekked up Notre Dame again – which made me smile when I thought of the happy memories of the trip…again, with the stuff popping in my head!
And if moving items to the upper level weren’t enough of a task, I then needed to organize and figure out workable storage for all the items. I had no idea how long it would take to sift through a bunch of little things. WOW, it was unbelievably time consuming! I don’t remember how many tiny pieces of approximately 1 x 2 inch scraps of paper I parted with, why was I holding on to ones that small anyway??
By Wednesday the front room and dining room were cleaned, spruced, and restored to a living space. The upstairs room now had organization and I couldn’t wait to get started scrapping in my new space. All I lacked was a table, chair, and more lighting. No worries, we planned to head out during the weekend and find them and at the same time possibly take advantage of the huge sales.
Part of my in-laws Thanksgiving Day traditions is that once the feasting is done the newspaper ads for the weekend sales come out and everyone sifts through them looking for the deals they’re willing to go early for. John and I looked through the ads for a table and chair, all the while enjoying the laughter and oohs and ahhs with everyone else. When asked by his Mom what we were looking for we told her about the previous couple days’ activities and that we needed the table and chair to complete my space. She said that it sounded like the items would be good Christmas gift ideas, but we explained that I didn’t really want to wait that long to get them. I have a goal of trying to finish the Paris project before the end of the year after all… so even though we didn’t see anything in the papers that was what I had in mind we decided that sometime that weekend we might get out and looky-loo.
We had only planned to relax and enjoy the weekend, shopping wasn’t really a top priority so we spent the couple of days after Thanksgiving prepping our home for our day with Nic and Jen to come over to help decorate. So on Saturday night when my Mom-in-law called to discuss some covert topic with John I went upstairs to work more on organizing the tiny elements in my appointed creativity area. Then John came to me needing advice about a dilemma he and his Mom couldn’t decide on. A Christmas present had been purchased for me, but she knew that I wanted it and needed it before the holiday…so what did I want more, the gift now – or then? Would I be disappointed to know early what I was getting for Christmas? Would I be upset that I didn’t have anything to open on Christmas day? These questions were posed to me and after thinking it through I decided to accept the gift early. I am more than happy to recall on Christmas morning what I’d already been gifted with. Yes, I like surprises but since I had determined what the gift was, after recalling the conversation on Thursday and John’s attempt at being cryptic but not completely covert, I was very happy to have the table brought over on Saturday night.
The table is the perfect height, and the chair is comfy! I have a foot stool that belonged to my grandmother underneath the table for when I need to elevate my legs, so there is another comfy bonus to my little sanctuary. So now my craft area is set and I have spent many happy hours there already. The space is still a little creatively messy – but it will all be put right in a while. As soon as I get another lamp I will be complete! I am so delighted with how all our hard work of getting things rearranged worked out.
Sunday was so much fun decorating the house and putting ornaments on the tree. I like the new tradition we’ve started with Nic and Jen, I hope it is one we can continue for years to come!!
Now…if we can just get the garage done…
Monday, November 16, 2009
Crawling Out From Under A Rock
Hmmmm.... oh yeah... I have a blog.
Yeah, I guess maybe I should utilize this and get some of those deep thoughts out of my head. Or, just use it like I intended and share my latest creative happenings with everyone.
Silly Karen. Its not like you haven't been constructive or haven't gone anywhere...
You'd think that I really do live under a rock and only come out when the weather is agreeable.
Okay...I won't bore everyone with what's happened over the past 4 MONTHS!!???
I will update on what I've been up to/obsessing over/and kicking around lately though.
I am coming along on the Paris Scrapbooks. I am almost finished documenting day 8 of our trip. The big tourist day, Pont Alexandre III, the Liberty Flame, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, and more. So I'm really excited that I see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I have only a few more days to capture and then I'll be completed with the project.
I am truly hoping to have it completed by the end of this year.
What's really interesting about the last few days of the trip is the lack of the amount of pictures that we took. I know it was because we were concerned about saving battery power in the camera, plus after the ninth day we were soooo tired and overwhelmed, not to mention John coming down with that terrible flu!
But as I've always said, I love all the photos we took no matter how many there are!
Another really interesting thing about reflecting on the trip is that I flipped foward in the travel journal and realized that I never completed it!
In the last few days of the journey I slipped up and never wrote down what all had taken place and I started to panic. Of course this panic was so silly because its not like I don't remember what happened - I was there for crying out loud.
But then I had a moment of clarity when I realized - oh yeah... I was going to spend the time on the flight home updating the journal - I mean, it was a fifteen hour flight - there was pleanty of time!
Now, of course I didn't know then that I would be getting sick on the flight.
Looking back I think part of my getting sick was in sympathy for John being so darn miserable, and the fact that I was exhausted. Deliriously happy and in disbelief, but exhausted all-in-all
Luckily I kept cryptic notes to help with the actual journal entries.
Sooo.. I need to go back and write in the last bit and the reflections of the trip itself, another personal task for me to accomplish before the end of the year!
One of the layouts I have been working on is the arial pictures of the city from the top of the Eiffel Tower. My idea is to put little tags on the side of the pics that show the landmarks of the city. Places that we actually visited will be in one color, while other known landmarks we missed will be in another color, more for points of interest and such.
So in order to make sure that I have the correct places labeled I've been spending time on Google Earth. Man, I love it! Its so much fun to go virtually wandering around and revisiting the places we were at.
So when I got to having trouble seeing things in my pictures; my poor tired eyeballs, I decided to fly to other places I'd been to and check in there. Again, I so enjoy peeking in on places like Savannah, Georgia and Seattle, Washington, oh and there was Rock City, Tennessee and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was even a lot of fun, although a little cheesy, to check in on my neighborhood. So I have successfully spent some hours there lately.
Changing Topic:
I've recently did a little baking, which turned out to be more of a failed experiement of strange serendipitous proportions. The people that I chat with everyday have already heard this story, but I'll retell it anyway.
I made a pineapple upside down cake, and after putting it on the glass platter I didn't put it on a cooling rack - and the heat from the cake shattered the platter. Scary and frustrating all at the same time.
So as upset as I was about the experience luckily my fabulous support team around me rallied my spirits and I surprisingly moved on with ease.
BUT I am planning a rematch with the baking fates! John and I have a Geek event on Saturday night, and although I will be spending time with my Mom between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon I'm going to try to squeeze in some baking time early Friday morning. I am hoping to make a creme filled Devil's Food cake that is topped with faux ganache and decorated with a lacy frosting top. Imagine a giant Hostess Ding Dong, but in 9 1/2 x 13 inch form. If I can pull it off I will regain confidence in my baking self esteem!
The Geek group will be my taste testers to see if it goes into rotation, mwahhh haaa haaa ha ha!!!!!
This is the time of year that my mind starts to turn to baking and candy making, that's when I really start getting into the holiday spirit!
So what else has been happening???
Oh, Rock Band. I have become obsessed with it!!!
It started out simply as just being a roadie/groupie for John and has now turned into my personal mini ego-fest!
I decided a while ago that I was going to try things that I'm intimidated by. So I started singing along one night during a family Rock Band party, then I tried the guitar one day when I was home alone. I started on "easy" and have now worked my way up to "medium" and am now comfortable to play with other people, and pardon me as I pat myself on the back to say, "I've gotten pretty decent at it."
Either way its been a lot of fun, and even though I get a little frustrated sometimes when I forget where and what my fingers are supposed to do - it actually relaxes me.
The only problem is that it has taken away some of my attention from scrapbooking...
oh yeah, the Paris project... Gotta get that wrapped up!
Well, its been fun catching up. I think I will make it my goal to try to put something one here more often, wait? Haven't I already said that once before??? Well, we'll see how it goes...
Have a great day!
Ren :)
Yeah, I guess maybe I should utilize this and get some of those deep thoughts out of my head. Or, just use it like I intended and share my latest creative happenings with everyone.
Silly Karen. Its not like you haven't been constructive or haven't gone anywhere...
You'd think that I really do live under a rock and only come out when the weather is agreeable.
Okay...I won't bore everyone with what's happened over the past 4 MONTHS!!???
I will update on what I've been up to/obsessing over/and kicking around lately though.
I am coming along on the Paris Scrapbooks. I am almost finished documenting day 8 of our trip. The big tourist day, Pont Alexandre III, the Liberty Flame, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, and more. So I'm really excited that I see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I have only a few more days to capture and then I'll be completed with the project.
I am truly hoping to have it completed by the end of this year.
What's really interesting about the last few days of the trip is the lack of the amount of pictures that we took. I know it was because we were concerned about saving battery power in the camera, plus after the ninth day we were soooo tired and overwhelmed, not to mention John coming down with that terrible flu!
But as I've always said, I love all the photos we took no matter how many there are!
Another really interesting thing about reflecting on the trip is that I flipped foward in the travel journal and realized that I never completed it!
In the last few days of the journey I slipped up and never wrote down what all had taken place and I started to panic. Of course this panic was so silly because its not like I don't remember what happened - I was there for crying out loud.
But then I had a moment of clarity when I realized - oh yeah... I was going to spend the time on the flight home updating the journal - I mean, it was a fifteen hour flight - there was pleanty of time!
Now, of course I didn't know then that I would be getting sick on the flight.
Looking back I think part of my getting sick was in sympathy for John being so darn miserable, and the fact that I was exhausted. Deliriously happy and in disbelief, but exhausted all-in-all
Luckily I kept cryptic notes to help with the actual journal entries.
Sooo.. I need to go back and write in the last bit and the reflections of the trip itself, another personal task for me to accomplish before the end of the year!
One of the layouts I have been working on is the arial pictures of the city from the top of the Eiffel Tower. My idea is to put little tags on the side of the pics that show the landmarks of the city. Places that we actually visited will be in one color, while other known landmarks we missed will be in another color, more for points of interest and such.
So in order to make sure that I have the correct places labeled I've been spending time on Google Earth. Man, I love it! Its so much fun to go virtually wandering around and revisiting the places we were at.
So when I got to having trouble seeing things in my pictures; my poor tired eyeballs, I decided to fly to other places I'd been to and check in there. Again, I so enjoy peeking in on places like Savannah, Georgia and Seattle, Washington, oh and there was Rock City, Tennessee and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was even a lot of fun, although a little cheesy, to check in on my neighborhood. So I have successfully spent some hours there lately.
Changing Topic:
I've recently did a little baking, which turned out to be more of a failed experiement of strange serendipitous proportions. The people that I chat with everyday have already heard this story, but I'll retell it anyway.
I made a pineapple upside down cake, and after putting it on the glass platter I didn't put it on a cooling rack - and the heat from the cake shattered the platter. Scary and frustrating all at the same time.
So as upset as I was about the experience luckily my fabulous support team around me rallied my spirits and I surprisingly moved on with ease.
BUT I am planning a rematch with the baking fates! John and I have a Geek event on Saturday night, and although I will be spending time with my Mom between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon I'm going to try to squeeze in some baking time early Friday morning. I am hoping to make a creme filled Devil's Food cake that is topped with faux ganache and decorated with a lacy frosting top. Imagine a giant Hostess Ding Dong, but in 9 1/2 x 13 inch form. If I can pull it off I will regain confidence in my baking self esteem!
The Geek group will be my taste testers to see if it goes into rotation, mwahhh haaa haaa ha ha!!!!!
This is the time of year that my mind starts to turn to baking and candy making, that's when I really start getting into the holiday spirit!
So what else has been happening???
Oh, Rock Band. I have become obsessed with it!!!
It started out simply as just being a roadie/groupie for John and has now turned into my personal mini ego-fest!
I decided a while ago that I was going to try things that I'm intimidated by. So I started singing along one night during a family Rock Band party, then I tried the guitar one day when I was home alone. I started on "easy" and have now worked my way up to "medium" and am now comfortable to play with other people, and pardon me as I pat myself on the back to say, "I've gotten pretty decent at it."
Either way its been a lot of fun, and even though I get a little frustrated sometimes when I forget where and what my fingers are supposed to do - it actually relaxes me.
The only problem is that it has taken away some of my attention from scrapbooking...
oh yeah, the Paris project... Gotta get that wrapped up!
Well, its been fun catching up. I think I will make it my goal to try to put something one here more often, wait? Haven't I already said that once before??? Well, we'll see how it goes...
Have a great day!
Ren :)
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Holy Geekathon Batman! Its Comic-Con time!
Every year on the third weekend of July something magical happens... well... maybe not magical, whimsical? Yeah, lets go with that.
My husband eagerly awaits this time of year, its almost as exciting for him as Christmas.
I'm talking about the annual San Diego Comic-Con. This is the first year John will be able to do something he's been wanting to do for years - stay in San Diego and be able to attend the masquerade ball on Saturday night!
In the past he's decided not to stay the entire day to see it because it doesn't start until like 9pm (!) and he didn't want to drive home so late afterwards.
So, since we're staying in town the whole weekend he's going to get to go and see all the cool costumes that people will be showing off. Mind you, people will walking around the convention all weekend long in costume but the masquerade is kinda a big deal - I guess.
What will I be doing you ask? Well, I will be going to the convention with him for one of the days and enjoying all the interesting sights, but that's all I'll be able to handle, so I'm going to let him enjoy the rest of his weekend without having to worry about me losing it in a crowd.
Besides, I'm not that big of a geek anyway. Someone out there will disagree with that, but believe me my level of geekiness is soooooo low in comparison to some of the hardcore comic/movie/tv/science fiction/role playing/game loving geeks that will be there. I'll let them have the fun.
The rest of the weekend I am planning on scrapping in the hotel room with maybe a break out by the pool. A trip to Sea World with my wonderful friends, who are coming down to enjoy the day with me, is also planned. Other than that, relaxing and just kicking back!! I'm hoping somewhere in the weekend I will have my hands on a nice cool frosty margarita!! Wish me luck on that!
I will be back next week with highlights and all the fun news from our wonderful experience!
:)
My husband eagerly awaits this time of year, its almost as exciting for him as Christmas.
I'm talking about the annual San Diego Comic-Con. This is the first year John will be able to do something he's been wanting to do for years - stay in San Diego and be able to attend the masquerade ball on Saturday night!
In the past he's decided not to stay the entire day to see it because it doesn't start until like 9pm (!) and he didn't want to drive home so late afterwards.
So, since we're staying in town the whole weekend he's going to get to go and see all the cool costumes that people will be showing off. Mind you, people will walking around the convention all weekend long in costume but the masquerade is kinda a big deal - I guess.
What will I be doing you ask? Well, I will be going to the convention with him for one of the days and enjoying all the interesting sights, but that's all I'll be able to handle, so I'm going to let him enjoy the rest of his weekend without having to worry about me losing it in a crowd.
Besides, I'm not that big of a geek anyway. Someone out there will disagree with that, but believe me my level of geekiness is soooooo low in comparison to some of the hardcore comic/movie/tv/science fiction/role playing/game loving geeks that will be there. I'll let them have the fun.
The rest of the weekend I am planning on scrapping in the hotel room with maybe a break out by the pool. A trip to Sea World with my wonderful friends, who are coming down to enjoy the day with me, is also planned. Other than that, relaxing and just kicking back!! I'm hoping somewhere in the weekend I will have my hands on a nice cool frosty margarita!! Wish me luck on that!
I will be back next week with highlights and all the fun news from our wonderful experience!
:)
Friday, July 17, 2009
Under A Rock...
Okay, apparently I've been under a rock or something...because I haven't added anything here in over a month??
Silly Karen...
Okay, here a condensed version of a blog entry I put up today on the scrapbooking website. I apologize to anyone who's seeing it again.
Let me start off by saying - I enjoy scrapbooking sooo very much! So I like it when I can go to crops and be among folks that share in my enthusiasm.
I've been going to a store's crop nights for a few months now, I have been there maybe five or six times, and I've been very comfortable and have had fun there. Since I hadn't been going to the store for a long time I haven't gotten to know all the regulars yet, but the ones I have gotten to know have been so friendly and personable, making the experiences so much nicer.
When I went for their Independence Day crop earlier this month I was very excited. It was twelve hours of scrapping with a potluck barbeque and it sounded like it was going to be a great day!
Cue, Rant:
I got there and was placed by some ladies I had not seen before, I figured either they hadn't been to the store in quite some while (they seemed to know quite a few of the people who showed up) or they had been there on nights that I didn't attend the crops.
I was very happy to meet new people and introduced myself, everything seemed pleasant.
Not more than twenty minutes later one of the women completely bit my head off in response to something I had said.
Well, I was completely frazzled, not to leave out - felt insulted, and well maybe this is a little over-reactionary but - attacked.
The woman didn't know me from Eve, I had only said hello to her a moment ago and next thing I know I'm being verbally eviserated!
Well - I didn't react outwardly (although I'm sure I blanched a little and maybe even winced) and I certainly didn't speak to her the rest of the day.
I almost considered leaving (being moved wasn't really an option since they were expecting a large group of people who all wanted to sit together...) but I had been looking foward to the crop for a few weeks and didn't feel I should be the one to leave.
Did I mention this took place all within the first thirty minutes of arriving at the store?
So I just sat at my seat and ignored the woman that was twelve feet away from me and just went about my day of scrapping.
A few hours into the crop some of the other folks that I had gotten to know showed up so I did start to feel comfortable.
I never got a chance to talk to the hostess about it. I didn't want to make waves since I'm kind of the new kid in town there, but I felt that I should at least have the right to discuss it with her. Unfortunately I didn't take any initiative to talk to her, since she was the only hostess with a crowd of over 30 women she was very busy. I did let her know that I wanted to talk with her when we got a chance.
By the end of the evening I had made up my mind that for future crops if this same woman is attending I'll just ask not to be sat by her. I'm sure she's not even aware how much she offended me, and I guess that's her personality - but I don't have to be friendly to her, I'm not going to be rude to her - but I don't need to know her.
Its been a couple of weeks since the experience. I'm getting ready to go back to the store tonight, I will ask the hostess to set me apart from the woman and just politely say that I would prefer not to be sat next to her. I don't think the hostess will be offended, and I don't want to be difficult but I don't want to be uncomfortable either.
I've decided that I'm very sorry for this woman that had such negative experiences thats influenced her violent emotions, but that doesn't mean she has the right to diminish my happiness.
I choose not to give her any control over me or cloud my happy memories. I enjoy this hobby too much to let someone spoil it for me.
I would rather be positive and happy while I'm doing something that brings me so much joy. So in order to keep that blissful feeling I will not associate with anyone who is grouchy, angry, or rude. They can sit in there pit of dispair without me, thank you very much.
I will go and merrily scrap my day away in happy thoughts and enjoy myself.
Silly Karen...
Okay, here a condensed version of a blog entry I put up today on the scrapbooking website. I apologize to anyone who's seeing it again.
Let me start off by saying - I enjoy scrapbooking sooo very much! So I like it when I can go to crops and be among folks that share in my enthusiasm.
I've been going to a store's crop nights for a few months now, I have been there maybe five or six times, and I've been very comfortable and have had fun there. Since I hadn't been going to the store for a long time I haven't gotten to know all the regulars yet, but the ones I have gotten to know have been so friendly and personable, making the experiences so much nicer.
When I went for their Independence Day crop earlier this month I was very excited. It was twelve hours of scrapping with a potluck barbeque and it sounded like it was going to be a great day!
Cue, Rant:
I got there and was placed by some ladies I had not seen before, I figured either they hadn't been to the store in quite some while (they seemed to know quite a few of the people who showed up) or they had been there on nights that I didn't attend the crops.
I was very happy to meet new people and introduced myself, everything seemed pleasant.
Not more than twenty minutes later one of the women completely bit my head off in response to something I had said.
Well, I was completely frazzled, not to leave out - felt insulted, and well maybe this is a little over-reactionary but - attacked.
The woman didn't know me from Eve, I had only said hello to her a moment ago and next thing I know I'm being verbally eviserated!
Well - I didn't react outwardly (although I'm sure I blanched a little and maybe even winced) and I certainly didn't speak to her the rest of the day.
I almost considered leaving (being moved wasn't really an option since they were expecting a large group of people who all wanted to sit together...) but I had been looking foward to the crop for a few weeks and didn't feel I should be the one to leave.
Did I mention this took place all within the first thirty minutes of arriving at the store?
So I just sat at my seat and ignored the woman that was twelve feet away from me and just went about my day of scrapping.
A few hours into the crop some of the other folks that I had gotten to know showed up so I did start to feel comfortable.
I never got a chance to talk to the hostess about it. I didn't want to make waves since I'm kind of the new kid in town there, but I felt that I should at least have the right to discuss it with her. Unfortunately I didn't take any initiative to talk to her, since she was the only hostess with a crowd of over 30 women she was very busy. I did let her know that I wanted to talk with her when we got a chance.
By the end of the evening I had made up my mind that for future crops if this same woman is attending I'll just ask not to be sat by her. I'm sure she's not even aware how much she offended me, and I guess that's her personality - but I don't have to be friendly to her, I'm not going to be rude to her - but I don't need to know her.
Its been a couple of weeks since the experience. I'm getting ready to go back to the store tonight, I will ask the hostess to set me apart from the woman and just politely say that I would prefer not to be sat next to her. I don't think the hostess will be offended, and I don't want to be difficult but I don't want to be uncomfortable either.
I've decided that I'm very sorry for this woman that had such negative experiences thats influenced her violent emotions, but that doesn't mean she has the right to diminish my happiness.
I choose not to give her any control over me or cloud my happy memories. I enjoy this hobby too much to let someone spoil it for me.
I would rather be positive and happy while I'm doing something that brings me so much joy. So in order to keep that blissful feeling I will not associate with anyone who is grouchy, angry, or rude. They can sit in there pit of dispair without me, thank you very much.
I will go and merrily scrap my day away in happy thoughts and enjoy myself.
Monday, May 4, 2009
What did you do Ray?
So in all my excitement over National Scrapbooking Day I didn't share the information about my fun activity with my beloved friend Edana.
On Friday we went to Los Angeles to go to the Pavillion of Wings Butterfly exhibit at Exhibition Park, right next to the Natural History Museum. It was a nice day with mild weather and overcast sun which made it comfortable inside the netted area were lots and lots of different butterflies were fliting around. It was so wonderful to actually be in the enclosure with them! After spending time in the exhibit we stepped outside to see this brick building that I believe is the original facade of the museum - it was so wonderful to see, it reminded me of being back in Paris with the ornate buildings and stonework.
While taking photos of the building Edana noticed some flowers that she wanted to get closer to take pictures of and right around that time I noticed this vast space of roses bushes. Turns out it is the Exposition Park Rose Garden. It was fabulous! Its this huge area with seperated plots of specific roses of different varieties and colors. We had such a wonderful time walking through and taking pictures. Every once in a while the wind would blow over the bushes and we were treated to fragrant wafts of roses. It was so serene and beautiful. I like it when serendipity gives us a surprise! If you like roses I strongly suggest you visit the garden. The butterfly exhibit runs to July I believe, and it was pretty inexpensive - $3 for 30 minutes if I remember right... parking was $8, but you can make a day of it! We even saw people having a picnic in the rose garden - so there you go.
As per my previous post, Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day, and I had a blast. I went to Theresa's house and there was a total of six of us scrapping and chatting - it was a lot of fun! Surprisingly we all got a lot accomplished. I spent four and a half hours of the crop time working on one layout. Not because of the usual "thinking about it too much," but because it was a tedious detail oriented layout. I took a photo of a stained glass ceiling and made an inverted pop-up of it using four copies of the photo. Then with my Cricut machine I cut out a bunch of flourishes and made decorative corners to highlight the photo. And that's all that is on the page!! I will try to have pictures of the page up later this afternoon. I just hope it looks as good on the blog as it does in person.
Other than that Sunday was pretty quiet, John spent most of the day resting because he has been having sinus complications, luckily by this morning he was feeling much better.
Oh and me, well... I signed myself up for a scrapbooking challenge. This is the first one I signed up for so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Its 20 layouts within the 31 days of May. So all the layouts I create in the month can be used in the challenge. Then there is this extra 25 bonus pages and I'm not even sure what that's all about - so I may have gotten myself into a sticky situation... we'll have to see how it goes, I'm a little excited about it - I have 7 layouts already done so I'm going to maintain my positivity about it. But when it starts to go bad I don't know who I'm gonna call... I know, Ghostbusters?? {harken back to blog entry title - I know its a stretch - work with me here!} Heee heee hee
I hope everyone is having an excellent day! Be back soon!
~Ren
On Friday we went to Los Angeles to go to the Pavillion of Wings Butterfly exhibit at Exhibition Park, right next to the Natural History Museum. It was a nice day with mild weather and overcast sun which made it comfortable inside the netted area were lots and lots of different butterflies were fliting around. It was so wonderful to actually be in the enclosure with them! After spending time in the exhibit we stepped outside to see this brick building that I believe is the original facade of the museum - it was so wonderful to see, it reminded me of being back in Paris with the ornate buildings and stonework.
While taking photos of the building Edana noticed some flowers that she wanted to get closer to take pictures of and right around that time I noticed this vast space of roses bushes. Turns out it is the Exposition Park Rose Garden. It was fabulous! Its this huge area with seperated plots of specific roses of different varieties and colors. We had such a wonderful time walking through and taking pictures. Every once in a while the wind would blow over the bushes and we were treated to fragrant wafts of roses. It was so serene and beautiful. I like it when serendipity gives us a surprise! If you like roses I strongly suggest you visit the garden. The butterfly exhibit runs to July I believe, and it was pretty inexpensive - $3 for 30 minutes if I remember right... parking was $8, but you can make a day of it! We even saw people having a picnic in the rose garden - so there you go.
As per my previous post, Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day, and I had a blast. I went to Theresa's house and there was a total of six of us scrapping and chatting - it was a lot of fun! Surprisingly we all got a lot accomplished. I spent four and a half hours of the crop time working on one layout. Not because of the usual "thinking about it too much," but because it was a tedious detail oriented layout. I took a photo of a stained glass ceiling and made an inverted pop-up of it using four copies of the photo. Then with my Cricut machine I cut out a bunch of flourishes and made decorative corners to highlight the photo. And that's all that is on the page!! I will try to have pictures of the page up later this afternoon. I just hope it looks as good on the blog as it does in person.
Other than that Sunday was pretty quiet, John spent most of the day resting because he has been having sinus complications, luckily by this morning he was feeling much better.
Oh and me, well... I signed myself up for a scrapbooking challenge. This is the first one I signed up for so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Its 20 layouts within the 31 days of May. So all the layouts I create in the month can be used in the challenge. Then there is this extra 25 bonus pages and I'm not even sure what that's all about - so I may have gotten myself into a sticky situation... we'll have to see how it goes, I'm a little excited about it - I have 7 layouts already done so I'm going to maintain my positivity about it. But when it starts to go bad I don't know who I'm gonna call... I know, Ghostbusters?? {harken back to blog entry title - I know its a stretch - work with me here!} Heee heee hee
I hope everyone is having an excellent day! Be back soon!
~Ren
Friday, May 1, 2009
Happy National Scrapbooking Day!!
For the scrapbookers out there - May 2nd is National Scrapbooking Day!! So if you're like me and scrapbooking is not only a hobby - but therapy and the biggest part of my socialization, then you're having trouble maintaining your excitement that you're scrapping all day long on Saturday!!
I am so delighted that I have a place to throw my need for creativity somewhere that I actually like the outcome of what I've made. Although, it has taken a toll on the other crafty things I like to do, my jewelry making and cross-stitching projects have been gathering a layer of dust lately...
All the doodling, and cutting out pieces of paper, and the stickers that I got in trouble in school for has helped me to gather together skills that I use in my fascination with paper and embellishments, and tape - and don't forget glitter, gotta have glitter!!
So I'm glad we have a national day on the books to recognize the cataloging of our lives and experiences - but truly, for me - everyday is scrapbooking day!!
Enjoy the day folks! I hope you are all scrapping and chatting with friends!
Have a wonderful Scrapbooking Day! And if you don't scrapbook - well... have a great day to you too!!
I am so delighted that I have a place to throw my need for creativity somewhere that I actually like the outcome of what I've made. Although, it has taken a toll on the other crafty things I like to do, my jewelry making and cross-stitching projects have been gathering a layer of dust lately...
All the doodling, and cutting out pieces of paper, and the stickers that I got in trouble in school for has helped me to gather together skills that I use in my fascination with paper and embellishments, and tape - and don't forget glitter, gotta have glitter!!
So I'm glad we have a national day on the books to recognize the cataloging of our lives and experiences - but truly, for me - everyday is scrapbooking day!!
Enjoy the day folks! I hope you are all scrapping and chatting with friends!
Have a wonderful Scrapbooking Day! And if you don't scrapbook - well... have a great day to you too!!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
First Post
Okay... here's my first post in my own blog. Now I've got to round up everyone from the blog I share with John; my husband, so I will need to get on that right away. Along with figuring out this internet thing to know how to work this out... something new to learn!!
Have a great day to anyone who stumbles in!!
-Ren
Have a great day to anyone who stumbles in!!
-Ren
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