One Little Word

When I signed up for Ali Edwards One Little Word class I had no idea what I was going to do or what it would involve. Back in December "my word" chose me. With all the craziness that has been going on in my life for the past few months the one word that kept coming to me over and over was the word "Peace". I didn't know exactly what I would be doing in Ali's class or if I would even like it but I knew I wanted more "peace" in my life so I thought I would go for it. The first prompt in January I read over but was still in the throws of finishing my December Daily album so I decided not to worry about it but to continue to participate on the closed Facebook page and see if things would come together. Then Ali posted the prompt for February we were to  make a vision board for our word. She suggested cutting words and pictures out of magazines and collage them on a poster board but of course it was up to us. I decided to go a little bit of a different route. I made a photo collage on the computer of pictures that brought me peace and then I scrapped it. I love the way it turned out and I felt accomplished. Then I remembered someone had posted on the Facebook page a photo of their word written in the sand. I thought I walk at the beach every week.....I will write my own word in the sand. So today I did. I found a random stick, walked off the asphalt path and on to the sand. I wandered down to the water and carefully wrote "Peace" in the sand. I took several shots until I had one that I liked and then decided to head back up to the path to finish my walk...it was at that moment I realized that I have become "attached" to my word. I didn't want to walk away and leave the "peace" in the sand. It was mine and I felt like if I walked away I was leaving my "peace" behind. I had no idea the profound impact it would have on me once I had written it. Of course I told myself that was silly but I stood there for an extra minute or two before I could finally convince myself to leave. After I had walked a short distance I thought "you just took half a dozen pictures of your word. You aren't leaving it behind. you are taking it with you",  so off I went back to my walk....feeling "peaceful" knowing that this is only February I have 10 more months to see where my word takes me.

Pockets

It's been a while since I have blogged. As much as I love reading others blogs I don't seem to be very good at writing on my own. Life has been interesting to say the very least lately. I'm continuing to work in the Hearing Aid dept at work which I enjoy. I have a wonderful new job at church. I am working with the Young Women. They are a great group of girls and I love being with them. I think they help to keep me young. =) Of course I am still playing with paper. It's a bit more difficult now a days as I don't always have that many pictures. So the "Project Life" style of scrapbooking has really appealed to me. I wasn't sure in the beginning if I would like it but the more I do it the more I am enjoying it. In the last few months I have managed to fill up almost a whole 12x12 album full of pocket pages. I have been using mostly Teresa Collins stuff with a smattering of Heidi Swapp and Echo Park thrown in the mix. I also have found some fun digital freebies online that have well worked too. Teresa Collins was here last month and I took her pocket page class. I love that lady. She is so sweet and down to earth. She really understands that scrapbooking is so much more than putting pictures on paper. I have had fun the last couple of weeks filling up pages from her class. I can almost feel like I could say that  I am "caught up" but honestly I really don't think that is possible since I am always taking more pictures. The cool thing about the pocket pages is that I am scrapping pictures that might otherwise have never been scrapped had it not been for the pocket page method. So a big thank you to Teresa Collins for getting me started on this way of scrapbooking. It's definitely helping me get more pictures off of my computer and into my scrapbooks. I don't think I will ever give up traditional scrapbooking but this just gives me another creative outlet. So here are a couple of pocket pages I have done from Teresa's class and then a layout I did with a picture from Jason's Birthday. I am going to try and blog more frequently.....so stay tuned and find out. haha.

HAPPY!

It has been a whirlwind month for sure. I started off the month with a weeks vacation and participating in the Color Run. I had a marvelous time doing both. My sister Linda came to visit and we had a blast just hanging out together and doing girl stuff. It turned out to be unseasonably HOT while she was here. One day after my car had been sitting in the sun for an hour or so I actually saw 112 on my cars thermometer....just WRONG in my book. At least it wasn't that warm for the Color Run or we would have wilted for sure. I will be doing a separate post about the Color Run later but I had a couple of layouts that I did while Linda was here that I wanted to post. I used "You are my Happy" and "Urban Market" both lines by Teresa Collins.

Of course this post would not be complete without my sharing a photo

of my adorable new Grandson . Ryker James Morgan arrived at 1:19 PM last Friday May 23. He's was 9 pounds and 22" long. I maybe somewhat biased but I think he is absolutely adorable. I can't wait to see him in person in a week or so!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Memorial Day holiday. I am enjoying just taking it easy and hanging out at home. Have a great week everyone!

Albums Made Easy

As many of you know I have been an avid scrapbooker for many years. I have always loved to take pictures and scrapbooking is just a creative way of displaying your photos AND telling your stories. It's not all about photos and pretty papers, you have to tell the stories too. Years ago when I was teaching scrapbook classes I always tried to get that point across to my students. Trust me, my parents died very young and I have lots of photos that belonged to them unfortunately, not many stories. So I have always tried to tell stories of some kind in my scrapbooks. True I have done plenty of pages without stories but when there is a story I want to tell it. So you would think I would have jumped on the Project Life bandwagon. I love scrapping everyday moments and I love telling stories but for some reason Project Life didn't seem to fit into my idea of scrapbooking...that is of course until my all time favorite scrapbook designer Teresa Collins partnered with We R Memory Keepers and made her own version of a pocket page album. She came to Scrapbook Daisies in Long Beach and taught a class and I just had to sign up. I told her she is about the only person who could get me to try the Albums Made Easy System. Since then I have done nearly 20 pages! They are so much fun. Every pocket is like a little mini scrapbook page. You can make them as simple or as elaborate as you want, whatever works to tell YOUR story. So when Teresa posted on her blog recently that she was looking for 3 new designers to join her team I got to thinking that maybe I should apply. Finally, one day while I was walking the whole idea came to me...I've been wanting to tell my story of the past year...Teresa has this cool new line of paper called "Hello My Name Is" that I already have a bunch of...I could tell the story of my losing weight and getting healthy and do it with the Albums Made Easy system. So without further fanfare here are my layouts for the Teresa Collins Design Team Call.

New Layouts

Hi everyone...Now that I have finished my December Daily I have been able to start working on layouts again. I honestly haven't done that many in the last few months. I counted up my layouts for last year and only came up with 52....that's about half of what I usually do in a year. Mind you I don't feel like I have been any less creative but rather I have had my focus elsewhere. So I guess we will see where my creative path takes me in 2014.

The other night I wanted to scrap but wasn't sure where to start
I decided to lift a layout of one of my sweet online friends,
Jean Marmo. I love the way it turned out. Of course it helps that
I totally adore this paper line from the awesome Teresa Collins.

 

I love this selfie of Cliff and I. We weren't all "colored up"
yet but were having so much fun with the family at the Color
Run in Tempe, AZ

A fun photo of Jason with his cream soda from "Jason's Deli"
in AZ.

Love how happy he is in these photos...just not sure
he was cut out to be a "blonde" lol

Hi Everyone and thanks for stopping by to see my December Daily. Yes I know it's January already but I never quite get my album done til now anyway. I have been a horrible blogger lately as I just realized my last post was in October! ***gasp*** maybe I will be better at it in 2014...of course time will tell. I tried something different when I photographed my pages this year. I did them inside at night ( I know probably not the best but they really seemed to look ok to me and I wanted to get them done) I took them all with my phone then I went and made collages with them....so if you should have any questions about any of my pages please feel free to ask me and I can fill you in. For my album this year I once again chose Teresa Collins beautiful papers. I just can't seem to get enough of her stuff. Her Santa's List line was perfect for my book. I also incorporated a few papers from Heidi Swapp's Believe line. I thought the colors complimented each other well and it changed it up just a little bit.
This year I wasn't into a lot of story telling, though there is plenty of journaling, but there's lots of photos and plenty of artwork to make everything fun. I originally had planned on stopping the book on December 25th but with Jeremy and Holly coming after Christmas it just didn't make sense so I included the entire month of December. My work holiday party was actually just last weekend but I included those photos as well.
I want to thank everyone out there who posted layouts using Teresa's Santa's List paper because the busier I got the more I needed inspiration. Your work is AMAZING and I appreciate that you share it out there for those of us who often need some help in thinking outside the box. So without any further rambling here are my pages from my 2013 December Daily. Thanks for letting me share it with all of you!

I loved the color scheme this year and that Santa is just adorable.

Every year the month always starts out slowly and I can keep up
and then everything get crazy.

This year I did tell a few stories.

I used a few of Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas prompts
this year. Here I did the weather prompt and the gift wrap prompt.

Sometimes I will add 6x6 pages to add journaling and then I
have to find something to do with the back...I made my own
little tree this page.

Having our first grandson this past year made Christmas
extra fun, even if they didn't come til after the holiday.

After 39 years of crying every Christmas about missing my
Mom, this year I didn't cry....definitely a story to document.

Thanks to self portraits I actually have some cute photos
with Cliff and I...after all I have to document my 33 anniversary.

Some more artsy pages along with some silly photos
of me making cookies

Documenting Christmas Eve and Day

More Christmas Day and a great picture of Cliff and me
from the holiday party. Thanks to one of my co-workers.

Love the photo booth photos from my work party and
the one of Jeremy and Holly too.

The holidays are about family and we had a wonderful time
with Jeremy, Holly and Kaden at the Aquarium.

The first time in 6 years I have been able to spend with Jeremy
on his birthday....so much fun. By midnight on NYE I was
sound asleep...so that's the only photo I have.

The last photo in the book is my favorite from the whole season.
Kaden was being so silly and Jason was loving playing with him
the sheer JOY on their faces makes me smile every time I see it.

DAY #126

I decided I had way too much to say about my walk today to just post it on Facebook so I decided I would blog about it instead. Normally on Saturdays I drive down to the beach and walk there. It's always fun to get away from my normal routine and enjoy the sights and sounds down at the beach. It does wonders for my mind. It kind of clears the cobwebs out and gives me time to think. Unfortunately this weekend we had some car issues to deal with so I had no real way to get down to the beach so instead I decided I needed to improvise. So improvise is what I did. This morning it occurred to me that I have been saying since I transferred to the new warehouse that I lived so close I could walk there...but I never have...so that's what I decided to do this morning is walk to Costco and back. I knew it was about 2 miles over so I could get in the same amount of walking that I do at the beach. Ok, so I admit it wasn't the same as walking at the beach but it was still good. Now I can actually say I have walked to Costco...lol Once I got there I decided I would walk the perimeter of the building. We use to have to do that as part of our floor walks for the Member Service department. Costco has since said we no longer have to do that but I remember when I use to do them it would take me a good 10 minutes to walk all the way around the building...I am here to tell you...NO MORE!!! I walked the perimeter in 6 MINUTES!!! What a difference!!! I knew I had come a long way but to actually realize I had shaved 4 minutes off my time was HUGE to me. The few co-workers that I passed thought I was slightly crazy for "going to work" when I didn't have to but it made for a great walk.

On the way home as I was cutting through the neighborhood that we use to live in I decided to walk past our old apartment. It pretty much looks the same. So many memories there when my boys were so little. How did they grow up so fast? As I continued on my way I passed the boys elementary school and I truly was going to go into the Kindergarten playground and swing on the swings but the gate was locked so I decided jumping the fence was out of the question...lol So many memories in that neighborhood....I drive through there daily on my way to work but never really take the time to stop and think about it.  Life just goes by too quickly...I need to remember to enjoy EVERY moment!!

Cool pattern in the sidewalk at Bella Terra

Loved the Bird of Paradise with the pine behind it

I am off to get stuff done around here. We are going to a Halloween Party tonight and I have some treats to make. Have a great day everyone!

Mixed Media Fun

                                                                                                                                                             

Kaden at 7 months and Jeremy at 6 months.

 We had a great visit with
 Jeremy's in-laws while they were in SoCal recently. Holly's Mom babysits Kaden while
 Holly is at work and since we are 6 hours away I am always all about getting a new photo of our sweet grandson...so while texting his other Gramma one day I asked for a picture. She sent this one along with another one that will be scrapped together at a later date. This particular photo of Kaden while he totally looks like both of them reminded me of a photo I had of Jeremy at about the same age so I decided to scrap them together on the same page....one photo from 2013 and one from 1989. The Sketchabilities Sketch #99 was perfect for them. Even though I am not much of a mixed media girl, I felt drawn to the sketch so I decided to get out some Heidi Swapp Color Shine along with some of her cool resist papers and see what I could come up with. I must say I am very pleased with the results.

Sketch #99

This layout was done by one of their design team, Maria Shakhova.
I used it in combination with the sketch for my design. I loved all the
layers she used.

Finally Some Layouts to Share

My last post is a hard act to follow .It was kind of like a year in review post...now it's been nearly a month since blogged last....I know bad blogger. I admire women like Julie Jacob who blogs every day. I just never seem to be able to blog on a regular basis. It's kind of the way my scrapbooking has been going lately. I start a page and it sits on my table for a week or more before I get it finished. Now finally I have a few pages to share. I think it's taken me nearly all summer to finish them. Be that as it may....without any further fanfare....here are my most recent layouts and some thoughts to go with the.

The first layout was fun to do. Photos are from our trip to the Orange County Fair when Jeremy and Holly came to visit. The October Afternoon "Farm Girl" was perfect for the fair photos. I had no idea what I was going to use that cute little chipboard farm girl on when I bought the paper but totally love the out come.

The next layout has a story behind it. I have always loved the photo of Jason and his friend David from back in 2005, we were at Disneyland on a school band trip. The boys have been friends since then. They both became Eagle Scouts and have still remained friends even now that they are out of school. I surprised Jason last week and invited David to come over and spend some time with him in honor of Jasson's Birthday....of course being the good Mom that I

am I had to snap a couple of photos...much to  their dismay...I think maybe I might have had the idea for this layout running around in my head when I took the photo last week. What do you think??? I love to see how they have gone from little boys to grown up young men.

The Instagram layout is one that I started back in May when I first signed up on Instagram. I thought it would be fun to do. I started it, printed out the collage of photos and it sat unfinished for a couple of months. Finally one day when I was talking to my sister I managed to finish it with the exception of the Instamatic chipboard camera at the bottom...you see we both bought the paper when I was up visiting her last March she bought the cute little chipboard cameras and we were planning on sharing them...then we got busy scrapping and she temporarily misplaced said

cameras...fortunately she finally found them and and mailed them to me....Thanks Linda for helping me get another layout completed. =)

The last layout is one of several I have done about my journey this year. I went to the Doctors office for my 3 month post op appointment a few weeks ago, I was feeling so grateful that things have turned out so well...they could have been so different. I was feeling so wonderful that I decided to take a little "selfie" in the Doctors office and scrap about how great I was feeling.

Well there you have it....my most recent finished layouts. I still have a couple that I need to finish up so hopefully with any luck there will be another blog post coming sooner than this one...so stay tuned.

My Journey through 2013...my year of self discovery.

We are now over 8 months into 2013. I decided that rather than wait until December and write my "year in review" post I would start now. This blog post will eventually end up on a scrapbook page I am sure but for now this was a great place to put down my thoughts. Someone asked me this morning on Facebook what my original goal was in my current weight loss journey and I realized that my goal started out as just wanting to move more and eat less....but it has become so much more than that now. This afternoon I saw this quote on Pinterest and thought it totally described my year so far. Nothing could have prepared me for the twists and turns that this year has brought and yet I must say I am grateful for everyone of them.

January 2013 dawned with excitement at our house. We were expecting our first grandchild. I made plans to take vacation after the baby arrived so that I could be there when sweet little Kaden was born. He was perfect in every way. I arrived just the day after he was born and I was totally in love with this sweet little guy. I stayed the week and then went home. I hated to leave but knew that it was time to come home.  I was home a week or so and then the first "Plot Twist" entered my life. I had a routine colonoscopy and they found a mass in my rectum and I needed surgery. Talk about yelling "PLOT TWIST"!!! I was screaming! Fortunately for me I was surrounded by amazingly wonderful family and friends who supported me through the whole journey.

Sweet Kaden at 4 days old.

In March I was able to go and see my sister on another weeks vacation where I had an absolute blast. I looked at my sister and her amazing transformation from overweight to a remarkably fit woman having lost 30 pounds and I was instantly impressed and proud of her for doing it. I attended a couple of Zumba classes with her and realized that I really could move more and at that time I made up my mind that once my surgery was behind me I would embark on a journey of my own. I kept it to myself and continued to ponder about it as I prepared for surgery. I found myself even before the surgery trying to eat a little bit better.

Fast forward to after my surgery. I won't say the whole experience was a piece of cake because it totally wasn't. But I was guided along the way by a loving Father in Heaven who buoyed me up and carried me when I didn't think I could go on. Family supported me, friends rallied...words cannot express how

Loved hanging with my Sister, Linda.

Ready for Surgery

wonderful everyone has been. I was off work for two weeks. Believe me I needed it. While my surgeon was right it wasn't a painful surgery, I got tired very easily and found that resting as much as possible was important. I joked that I became an HGTV junkie. I watched all kinds of shows on that channel while I was recovering. By the time I had my one month post-op appointment I was back to work and feeling pretty good so I started to walk for exercise. Mostly just my neighborhood. One day at work my manager asked me how far I was walking and I said I wasn't sure probably about a mile. She told me about Map My Run, a free app I could get for my phone that ran off GPS and could track and record my exercise. Well let me tell you...that was all it took. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a silly app on my phone would inspire me to walk on a regular basis. I'm not very competitive by nature but now suddenly I was competing with myself through this app...I wanted to walk longer, I wanted to walk faster than I had the day before. Between Map my Run and my decision to post every day on Facebook to help keep me accountable I was off to a good start.

Today is day 50 of my walking. I have not missed a day. Some days I walk longer than others but even if I don't feel like it I do it anyway. At first I was afraid if I took days off I might not continue.
Besides, for years I had heard that it takes 21 days to develop a habit and I wanted walking to become a habit. So that was my first goal. It just kind of went from there. Especially when I saw how far I had walked. In July alone I walked 60.6 miles!!! I have branched out from my neighborhood. I am walking other neighborhoods.  I have been walking the beach on Saturdays when I have a little more time. Last Saturday I even walked extra...I got a little over zealous and got two miles away from my car before I realized I would have to walk 2 more miles back to my car. OOPS. I survived tho and while I was a little bit worn out the rest of the day I was thrilled that I could say I had walked 4 miles!

I finally got into the cute white
jeans my sister gave me.

My long term goal at this point is to do a Color Run like my sister. It looks like so much fun....my goal is to run as much of it as possible. There is one here locally in May of 2014...just in time for my 60th Birthday...I can't think of a better way to celebrate. I am sure as the weight comes off running will become easier. In the mean time I am just going to keep on keeping on. I feel so much better, . I have grown spiritually, physically and emotionally. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Truly the last 50 days has been AMAZING.  I have accomplished so much more than I ever thought possible. The weight is coming off. I have lost 20 pounds. While I can attribute some of that to surgery and not eating for nearly a week before and after the surgery....I have taken off much of it on my own. I am for the most part eating healthy foods. Not too much junk and really not even wanting it either, which for me is really weird. I have always had a sweet tooth but since my surgery I haven't craved sweets quite so much. So I am running with that as long as it lasts! lol I also am eating, per Doctors orders, lots of fiber and drinking lots of water. I've even cut way back on my diet coke consumption.

I have learned so much about myself in the past 50 days....I have discovered I am much stronger of a person than I ever thought....I have learned to rely on the Lord when I simply can't do it myself. I have discovered that I have so much determination when I really put my mind to something...yes I guess you can teach this old dog some new tricks...So what will the next 50 days bring....more walking, for sure, more healthy eating, definitely, more weight loss, I certainly hope so....and maybe, just maybe some new, better fitting clothes. =)



Fun in the Sun...a perfect day

It was such fun to have Jeremy and Holly come and visit last week. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some of the pictures I took of my sweet, adorable grandson. One afternoon we went down to the beach for an hour or so. It was a perfect day. Beautiful sunshine, watching my boys goof off in the waves and introducing Kaden to the beach. As you can tell from the picture Kaden loved it. Now if only they lived closer. =)

I used Teresa Collins "Stationary Noted" for this layout along with awesome sketch #96 from Sketchabilities. I am totally in love with their sketches. Check them out next time you want a great jumping off spot. www.sketchabilities.blogspot.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERESA!

What a wonderful lady....in honor of her Birthday she is giving away all four of her new collection packs! How cool is that...all we have to do is share the news....so I'm sharing everywhere I can think of. As you know I totally LOVE all things TERESA COLLINS. So head on over to her blog here. www.teresacollins.typepad.com and read up on all the details! Thanks again Teresa for the chance to win.

Enjoy the Journey

I love the Sketchabilities blog. It's such a great place to start when I am looking for inspiration. This is my interpretation of Sketch #95.

This year has indeed been a journey for me. From being a first time Gramma, to having surgery to finally deciding it was time to get healthy and loose weight.  I have only lost 12 pounds but I am amazed at how people are noticing.  It does a girl good to hear that she looks good. More than that though is that I feel so much better. I am doing things I never even dreamed that I would do. I am jogging. I have always hated running but no more. I am walking/jogging daily and most days I really enjoy it.  I have a ways to go to get to where I want to be but I have made up my mind I am going to enjoy the journey along the way.

 

A Surprise from Sketchabilities

WOW....I am so jazzed. I just happened to stop the Sketchabilities blog today and lo and behold there was one of my layouts in their header as one of their "featured" designers for Sketch # 93...how cool is that? I guess their Mr. Linky keeps track of how many hits my blog had for my layout and I was in the top 5....pretty darn excited, can you tell?  Thanks Sketchabilities. Your sketches ROCK!

Life has been busy lately, I am continuing to train in Hearing Aids at work. There's lots of stuff to learn but I am totally enjoying it. I have managed to get in some scrapping lately so I thought I would share. Have a great week everyone....and hopefully I will be blogging more often. =)

Love these photos of my adorable grandson!

I'm really serious about this getting healthy thing!

I love now and then photos on the same page especially when
they tell a story.

LOVE these ladies...we had a great time at our Tea Party.