ScrappyGuy Designs

Lookee what I did!

2012-01-09T21:43:00.002-05:00

Jessica Sprague is so COOL!

2010-11-08T18:32:00.002-05:00

SADNESS! Blog Train has pulled out of the station

2010-10-19T15:07:00.004-05:00

What fun we had, though. Right?
I can't thank Kelly enough for putting this together for all of us to enjoy.

I put all of your comments into the Randomizer and came up with one lucky winner.

She is going to get my FULL digital kit called Viva Venizia.

I am sending all of your names to Kelly for the opportunity to win other stuff. So if your name is not at the top of my random list, there is still hope!

Okay, so here's the winner:

Congratulations to Ann! I am going to send you think link very soon for your free kit.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for playing!

SCRAP SCRAP SCRAP Blog Train

2010-10-11T09:03:00.015-05:00

Welcome to the Scrap Scrap Scrap Blog Train! All the participating designers have recently been certified as JessicaSprague.com Certified Digital Designers. We are celebrating our new status by giving away mini-kits on a subject we all love - scrapbooking! Here's what you need to know:

*All mini-kits will be available for download through October 18, 2010.

*You can also enter to win a full kit from each designer on their blog. Each blog has different rules on how to enter so make sure you follow the directions!

*We will randomly select one designer's blog and one random comment on that blog. If that person has commented on all 10 blogs he/she will win all 10 kits!

*Be sure to include your e-mail in each comment so we know how to contact you when you win!

Now that we have all that out of the way, let's get this party started!

Back when I discovered paper scrapping I wanted to be surrounded by people who got it, too. I jumped onto Scrapbook.com and drummed up a bunch of people. After several months of meeting together we nicknamed ourselves the GA Peaches. I created this MINI kit to honor those amazing people.

Peach Scrap Mini Kit by ScrappyGuy Designs.
Scrap Scrap Scrap Blog Train

LINK HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN. SADNESS!

You can also enter to win my Viva Venizia full digital kit

I will give away this kit to one lucky commentor on this post. To enter, you can leave a comment on my post.
Please include your e-mail in each comment so you can be contacted when you win. Winner(s) will be chosen using random.org.

Your next train stop is Rill Studio. Click HERE

Here is the list of all the participating designers and their blogs in order. The designers are from all over the world so please be patient if the blog train posts aren't posted yet.

Simply Kelly Designs

Kelly Hedgespeth

Blog | Store

Erica Made Designs

Erica

Blog | Store

Latz Designs

Lisa Breuer

Blog | Store

Ka Boks

Siri Fjortoft

Blog

by the Shore designs by pammie~k

Pam Meeks

Blog | Store

Butterflies and Bluebells

Catherine Wood

Blog | Store

A Little Giggle Designs

Dodie Sarchet-Waller

Blog

September Blue

Kelly Sill

Blog | Store

Scrappy Guy Designs

Gary Fryns

Blog

Rill Studio

Jackie Hatton

Blog | Store

Happy scrapping until next time!

HERE IT IS!!

2010-10-04T18:28:00.000-05:00

Art of Digital Design at Jessica Sprague

2010-10-03T09:26:00.004-05:00

Sadly, this amazing class has come to an end. The first ever digital designers course has come to fruition and ended as of September 30th. My full kit

has been entered and generously critiqued by Carina Gardner. The final exam has been taken and passed. The actual certificate should be on its way in no time now.

I just wanted to thank Jessica Sprague for putting this amazing class together. I know I bugged her many times about creating such a class for all of us. I am thankful that she consented. Of course, she outdid my expectations. For that, I can never thank her enough.

If you have ever looked at designers kits and thought, "I wonder how they do that." Or, "I can make that." This class is for you! It's going to become available again after the new year, so jump on this bandwagon as soon as you can!

Art of Digital Design

Are you still awaiting the announcement?

2010-10-03T09:25:00.001-05:00

And I hope you are, because the release date is coming soon!

Stay tuned.

Huge. HUGE! TH-UGE event

2010-09-28T18:55:00.001-05:00

coming soon to this very blog!!

Yeah, you have to wait.

New Digital Kit? Check!

2010-09-06T17:40:00.004-05:00

I've been on a digital kit bender ever since completing Jessica Sprague's awesome incredible Art of Digital Design course. Got my mojo back! I went back through all the elements and paper packs that I've created and found 35 full kits and several other element packs just raring to go. Spruced them all up and created previews using my logo design approved by Carina Gardner herself!

But I couldn't stop there now, could I? Not only did I finish the kit required for the class, but I pumped out three brand new full digital kits! My newest one has been haunting me since last year. Venice was such a beautiful city that I couldn't let it just fade into the past. I found tons of fun things to use as ephemera in this kit. Hope you like it.

I thought I'd share my latest preview with y'all and see what you thought. AND if I can get up to 25 comments on it by next Sunday night at 7 P.M. I will bundle up a small sampling of it to offer to you for FREE. Okay, okay. So I would appreciate the love, but there's no reason why you shouldn't benefit as well, right?

Also, check me out on Facebook. I need some friends!

SpragueFest - Album Day

2010-08-03T15:53:00.002-05:00

Good morning, fellow friends.

It is I, Mr. Exhausted. And I am here to tell you that the last day spent amongst the SpragueMates was bittersweet indeed.

We got up a little later than expected, so I just ran down to get a few snapshots of the Bagel Breakfast then got some coffee and headed back to the room.

Meg and I showed up for the Album class right at 9 A.M. and found our seats quickly. The room was packed with a rainbow of laptop screens open and ready. As the class downloads were making their way through the room, Jess had each of us stand and give some background info about us. So inspiring to hear how all these far-flung folks came together on this day in history.

Jessica lead us in opening the Exclusive SpragueFest 3 mega collaboration kit. Whoo HOO! Some really great stuff to play with. Many many templates. My personal favorite. I spent a ton of time getting my pic files uploaded, organized, and labeled correctly. Not sure if you know, but real life descends again at 6 A.M. on Wednesday morning. School is set to depart from the Fun Harbor for the rollicking seas ahead. So, I needed to use this time productively and get my photos up and running. Especially the KUH-razy ones of Carina and the Tongue. >:-)

After three hours of goodness we broke for lunch and headed over to Giardino's for some Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. We took over the entire front half of the restaurant again and shared pie after pie. Such fun hanging out with Rayvelle, Deb and Pammie K. Joan made sure that everyone took the leftovers out of the restaurant. Then we gathered for a group shot.

Shopping was next on the list for many of the Spraguers. They were headed to the Nordstrom's Mother ship. I, on the other hand was headed back to the room for a much needed NAP! We were meeting up with Meg's friend, Byron, from school later on. The Hotel Wit has a fantastic rooftop bar where Meg and Byron spent an hour catching up with each other and sharing lives over the past 17 years.

It was time to meet up with Jana, Joan, Jeanne and special guest appearance by Meg's hubby, Bennett! We were going to Shaw's Crab House for some amazing LOB-stah!! Just as we were finishing we got a text from Kari. Their Blue Man Group show was done. Would it be possible to meet up for dessert? DUH!!

We busted in on Stetson's after hours and begged and pleaded. Deborah was more than happy to accomodate 12 sleep deprived punchy SpragueMates. we ordered every single dessert they had and even some chocolate adult yumminess. What a way to wind down an incredible five days. It felt like a whirling dervish sweeping me up, but with a smile on my face the entire time really helped!

Chicago Walking Tour - Making the Noodle Happy

2010-08-02T11:50:00.002-05:00

I am very late getting this ready for today. Bagel breakfast started at 8 AM (EEK!) and then class at 9. So, I'm behind.

Yesterday was all about Chicago. The Great Windy City that hosted the 2010 SpragueFest. Jenn's husband Tim was so gracious to offer his history buff-ness for the walking portion of the tour. He even did vast research to make sure we hit all the highlights with great information in hand. He started off with a walk down Wacker towards Fort Dearborn. Then we headed straight down Michigan. Can you imagine over 30 people all walking down the street with camera viewfinders attached to their heads? It was fun!

Our next stop was the Millenium Park with its beautiful fountains and water areas. The most exciting part was seeing the Chicago Bean. I think it has an actual correct name, but it is a huge bean shaped mirror that was so fun to just walk around. I got some amazing shots of the city skyline that looks like I took it with a fisheye lens. We lost Jess to a NineWest store for a bit, but with her being such a good shopper, she was back with us soon.

On towards the Picasso Horse statue and some beautiful stained glass outdoor museum. Next was the Theater District and the original Chicago theater sign. People started to disappear around this time. We found them later at a popcorn store. Meg and I were getting hungry around this time so we headed towards the Noodle House for some rice noodles and curry!

The next few moments were about to make us very UN-popular with the SpragueMates. As we were walking back to the Hyatt, we happened near the Transformers 3 set. It's hard to miss since it takes up like three city blocks. Anyways, people were screaming and pointing and I thought, "Hm, I'm going to take a picture now and figure out why they are so excited later."

Turns out Patrick Dempsey was right across the street waving to his adoring fans. O_M_G! I start snapping away and then my D90 just stops working. WHAT? My card was full and the security was yelling at us to move along. So Meg stepped up and took up the slack. We made many people very mad later when they discovered our secret rendezvous with Mr. McDreamy.

Back to the hotel for a brief 15 min shut eye, then down to the lobby. Wendella Boat Tours wanted us on site a half hour early before the Architecture Tour was to leave. Jana led us all over across the river to the meeting place. We boarded and then spent the next 90 mins calmly floating along the Chicago River, through the locks and out into Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful sunny day for doing this.

We got back a little later than expected so we walked immediately to the restaurant, Italian Village. We took over with all FIFTY of the Spraguers plopped down right through the middle of the place. Linguini and clams was yummy. But apparently nothing like Kristen's cream sauce experience.

I had saved myself for gelato, but made the mistake of telling Carina where we were going. What started out as an innocent gelato run quickly became a night of feral debauchery. Including wild taxi rides, noodle attacks (which Joan continues to deny), flying through the sky with just chains attached, 30 foot skyline turns, and finally begging for ice cream. We made it back to our rooms exhausted, but alive.

CHA - Day Two

2010-08-01T09:03:00.003-05:00

I'm back and feeling fine! As soon as I had my coffee yesterday, I was good to go. And I needed it too!

Meg and I arrived back at CHA around 10:30. We didn't have to be in the Sprague Booth until noon, so we did our shopping ahead of time. We stocked up on some Christmas stamps and embossing glitter to make our cards this year. Did a few make-n-takes and Meg scored some great iron on Bling.

We had to fight our way into the booth because it was PUH-ACKED! We both jumped right in on the computer lines helping folks see just how easy Digital Scrapbooking is. The light bulbs going on and the looks of amazement on the thousand or so faces that stopped by was fantastic to see. Sadly we couldn't spend all the quality time we wanted to with each guest because the lines kept backing up. But they did get to play with the Lucky Me quickpage and get a basic gist of working with Photoshop Elements.

Before I knew it, two hours had passed. When you're talking a mile a minute about things you love, that Time sure does fly. Meg and I hopped over to the fruit smoothie boost and stocked up on strawberry and blueberry smoothies and mango smoothies. Then I sat down to make a painted letter G with glitter polka dots. Shhh! It was fun. Meg made herself a pair of earrings. BTW, Nicole? You would love CHA. So many beading booths.

It was time to go back to the booth where the eight folks or so who were working the crowd needed a break. So we all rotated duties. I found myself as the appointed computer guy who stocked inks and paper and then handed out prints for folks who came back later for their pages. Can I just stop for a second and extol the virtues of the Epson R1900? We had three machines working over time these past two days. Even with that, the quality of the pages being printed were amazing from start to finish. Even as ink ran low, I never saw any nasty striations or blurry inks coming out. We rarely had to redo anyone's pages. So many happy smiling faces went away with a gorgeous 12x12 keepsake from JessicaSprague.com.

Later on, I don't quite know how it happened, I managed to shift myself 180 degrees to the other side of the booth to work the camera. I was having so much fun telling folks to turn their shoulders out, pull their chins down just a bit, and give me some sexy hair flips. Candice, you would have been so proud of me! What a great feeling it is to see many people walk away with smiling holding a photo that you took. It didn't hurt that they also had a AWESOME Jessica Sprague layout to show it off, right?

As six o'clock was approaching and we were still clicking and dragging and printing people out, the concept of pulling down the booth began to enter our minds. I don't think any of us liked the idea of leaving poor Jenn all alone in the booth until 9 PM to pack it all up. The last guest skipped away and the lights in the convention center were lowered. We rabidly attacked the booth. There were cables flying, tape being ripped up, cords wrapping themselves almost, pictures being plucked down, banners trickled down and posters were rolled up. Joan and I had the most fun wrapping plastic wrap around the boxes being shipped. Yep, you just heard sarcasm there. When you're trying to flip a box with a 40" monitor and wrap it as well it is interesting.

Yet, the smile that lit up Jenn's face when we had everything packed and labeled and on the carts by 7:30 was worth it all.

We hobbled out to the beautiful white stretch limo driven by Driver Tom. He promptly took us back to the hotel expertly diverting around the movie set for Transformers 3. We changed and met back down in the lobby to walk over to the Tavern on the Park where Jana had finagled us a private room upstairs. The Grand Entrance was made and hugs were passed out. Here's another side note: Kelly (SeaTurtleBean), Pammie-K, and Anne (PinewoodToo) are just the cutest things in person.

We ordered and ate and talked and laughed and snapped many many pictures. So much that we felt like the papparazzi just spotted Nicole Kidman. Afterwards Meg and I were appointed the Hollywood Movie Set tour guides. We lead a group over to where they were filming a scene which apparently included the top half of a building being sheared off and embedded into the pavement below. More pictures ensued. Even one just for Meg and the hot cop.

Back to the hotel around midnight and crawling into bed.

CHA - Day One

2010-07-31T08:40:00.003-05:00

OOF! This may take a while. I have the most amazing headache right now. I can't figure out why. I only had a glass of wine last night, but it feels like my head is having second thoughts.
Meg and I met up around 10 AM Atlanta time yesterday and drove to the airport. Made it and checked bags, then only had to stand around for half an hour til we boarded the plane. Uneventful voyage and landed around 2 PM Sprague-Time. We chose to use and EXPRESS van thinking it would get us to the hotel faster than the train. Boy, were we wrong. Traffic was amazingly bad and it ended up taking us an hour and twenty minutes. Drop our bags off in the room with the most gorgeous view of the Chicago River. Rush back to the train and take it almost all the way back to the airport. CRA-ZY!

Needless to say, Meg was about 45 mins late for her shift at the First Ever CHA Sprague Booth! Everyone did an incredible job setting it up and when we arrived it was slammed. Apparently it had been that way all day! Yay for Jessica. I managed to squeeze in hugs for all and a manly handshake with THE MR. JARED himself. So cool.

I was due upstairs for a market research group. Can you guess which product they randomly chose me to test? JessicaSprague.com. Can you believe it? I felt like such a ringer. Jenn, the marketing manager, got some really great information out of the other nine ladies though. So it was worth it to sit there and listen to all the great reviews. I almost fell over when one lady said she didn't like digi because she'd lose the social aspect of it. BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I set her straight on the fan-TAB-ulous group of people on this earth, otherwise known as the Spraguemates.

Afterwards, I went back down stairs and took pictures of the booth and walked around a bit to see all the stuff they have. This convention is humongous! The convention hall goes on for days and days. I highly doubt that Meg and I will get through it all in the two hours set aside tomorrow.

The show was over, the lights were dimmed to tell people to leave and dinner was calling. Joan, Meg, and I had the honor of eating with Ms. Carina Gardner and Crystal Wilkerson. We dined at Gibson's steak house and fought constantly with our waiter over whether Mormons were actually good people and which hunk of meat to order. He was funny. I am warning you now, though. If you order dessert be prepared to have it with at least eight of your friends. We ordered the chocolate mousse pie and it literally fed all five of us with plenty for Joan to take back to the hotel.

Let's see what goodness tomorrow brings!

FREE 6 mos. Photoshop Class

2010-06-27T18:02:00.000-05:00

CLICK HERE

sounds almost too good to be true, but I am certainly going to try this!

also looking into their digital photography course as well!!

Logo Branding?

2010-06-23T15:39:00.002-05:00

Today I am spending with Carina Gardner relearning all the goodness from her Illustrator 101 class (available over at Jessica Sprague's site). I need it for certain class activities. I thought Illustrator would be like riding a bike. But I can't seem to get the hang of it.
Thankfully Jessica allows us to access all of classes FOREVER! Otherwise I would be completely lost.

Blog Hoppin'

2010-06-19T01:10:00.002-05:00

Don't know why, BUT my nose started running constantly right as I tried to lay my head down on the nice cool sheets and go to sleep.
Yeah, that idea is ruined.

I do have something else to while away the hours with, though. Wanna hear about it?
SURE you do. Otherwise you wouldn't be spending time reading my blog.

Jessica Sprague as we all know is ONE ROCKIN' CHICK! She really does come up with some inspiring ways to keep me digi scrapping. Amazing classes are certainly one way I keep racing back to the Spragueground. But now she's up to something different.

In order to celebrate the THIRD anniversary of this Happiest Website on Earth she's come up with a super fun way of making us all run around in circles.

Blog Hopping! I've heard of it being used as a way to collect a kit, but Jessica managed to make it that much sweeter by also including a word phrase with all 33 of the downloads. Once we've downloaded all of the pieces (not a quick task, let me tell ya) we've got all of these phrases to unscramble then send it all back in.

I don't even remember what the prize is supposed to be, or even if there is one. But I don't care. I love this blog hopping thing. Wait, my computer just pinged. That means download number 17 just finished!!

Wish me luck.

Type + Writer 2, Day Seven

2009-10-21T20:53:00.000-05:00

What if???
What if Stacey Lewis is my means to becoming a rich and famous photographer to the stars? What if Sally’s Shih Tzu leads me to hand out my card to the head of the American Kennel Club? What if she wants me to photograph all 500 dogs being shown in Atlanta? What if I can support myself without having to teach? What if I went back to school to learn design? What if my family lived closer? What if we take that cruise at Christmas for two weeks and just put off visiting his dad? What if we decide to embark on redoing the kitchen and then hate it? What if I don’t finish my free calendar from Memory Maker by the due date? What if all of my students got the flu and were out for a week straight? What if these FreeMason conspiracy theorists are WHACK? What if Katie married Puck from Glee? What if Liv asks me to fly to the Phillipines to help teach a class? What if Jessica gets back to me about my ideas? What if I become a tshirt designer by accident? What if I am no longer afraid of success? What if I could lose weight without having to exercise? What if we could sell our house for a huge profit and move back to California? What if I finally write that children’s book? What if I scrapped more pages? What if I don’t finish my Christmas album? What if my family didn’t send me any Christmas presents? What if I get invited to be on Hell’s Kitchen? What if someone starts reading my blog? What if I finish with Julia Childs’s first book? What if I actually try an aspic recipe? What if I like aspic? What if Mia Michael’s regrets her new hairdo? What if my brother and sister can’t make it to Halloween Night at Universal? What if Robert Pattinson realizes that KStew is not for him? What if my parents LOVE my portraits of their child and ask me to do family shoots? What if Courtney hates me for stealing her customers? What if someone asks me to photograph a wedding? What if I take terrible pictures? What if Kit is a hardass about the shoot this weekend? What if I take too many pictures of BJ instead? What if it rains this weekend? What if it is so windy that my orange balloons never behave? What if I can’t find some gerber daisies that aren’t yellow? What if Gordon doesn’t want to come to the Dog Show with me this weekend? What if Sally accidently trips me and breaks my camera? What if the lighting is so horrible in the show that I can’t get a good shot? What if the dog doesn’t cooperate? What if this itchy spot on my face is skin cancer? What if I completely lose my hearing? What if this high pitched annoyance on the tv is put through on So You Think You Can Dance? What if she talks in this voice for the entire season? What if parents scream at me about grades?

October 21, Recipe #38

2009-10-21T19:29:00.002-05:00

Puree Pommes de terre a l'ail

Wanna take a stab at what this one translates into? I'll give you the potato part. Go...
Okay, it's garlic mashed potato. Can't fault Julia for her comfort food. I got to push roasted garlic through a sieve and take out my secret weapon again. My loverly potato ricer. Add butter and cream and whip. I used it as a bed for my blue cheese meat loaf. I'm liking this thing called food.

October 20th, Recipe #37

2009-10-20T19:37:00.001-05:00

Coq au Vin, Oignons Glaces a Brun, Champignons Sautes au Beurre

I LIT STUFF ON FIRE!Okay, it was cognac and only lasted five seconds. But MAN! I have always wanted to light my food on fire. Julia's recipe for the French classic seems a bit easy. It only took about an hour or so to finish. I was under the impression that this one was right up there with all day in the kitchen. My butcher massacred the chicken into ten weird pieces. I really had to watch the bones on this one. The onions and mushrooms were a nice base for the purple chicken.

Type + Writer, Day 4

2009-10-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

Remember Me When
How funny is it that I was just thinking about my teenage self yesterday. I needed some photos to use on my JS template layout about traveling. I found some old shots of the trip I took to Canada with my French class. Out of TEN total pictures that I have. I can’t even begin to imagine how many pictures I would have taken if I went today. I wasn’t so involved in recording my life when I was 17. I was more consumed with living it. There’s a huge difference right there. I want to remember the little details and highlight them. Before it was all about getting out there and being in the moment, no thought to how this moment would shape my life. Let’s move on to another difference. As a teenager I was still wearing my kiddie pajamas. The green ones that were way too short on me. I used to pull up my athletic socks to hide the gap between them and the bottom of my pant legs. There’s a picture of me just like this scrunched up on the couch with a book planted in front of my nose. That’s what I remember most about myself then. I was always reading something or other. I still am. My tastes range from one extreme to the other. Take the last two books I have read: My Life in France by Julia Childs and Gil’s All Fright Diner by someone or other. One’s a biography of a great American chef, the other? A story about a werewolf and a vampire that travel the backroads of America ridding the world of zombies one head at a time. I was always so unattached back then. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I got to be an adult. I just took random suggestions from other people as to what I should do. Nowadays, I wish I could go back in time and smack the ever lovin’ heck out of myself. Why do they expect teenagers to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives? I certainly had no idea that educating wee minds would not thrill me to my fingertips and make my heart thump like the Energizer Bunny. I didn’t find my passion in life until I was 35 years old!! Such a travesty, I tell ya. Also, I took the easy way out of things when I was a teenager. That kind of mindset has gotten in my way too many times to count these days. I want to be successful, but when things get hard or weird I find ways to drop out and ease back. I think it’s a learned trait. One that I am working through. Another similarity? I still love horror movies. The creepier the better. I used to be okay with gore, but can’t seem to stomach the needless blood spatters going on in film today. I have so many of the movies I used to watch back then and drag them out every now and then to relive those moments when things were still dark and unknown.

Type + Writer 2: Free Write Day Two

2009-10-18T18:30:00.002-05:00

First Trip
When I first saw this assignment to write about a trip to exotic lands, of course I immediately thought of Italy. The trip we took last June. It will probably be the highlight of my life for a long time to come. But as I thought more and more, I wanted to write about something else. The first trip that came to mind from my ‘gangly teenage’ years was the one my French class took to Quebec, Canada. It was the first real big trip I took away from my family. The first I completely paid for on my own. A bus packed full of my friends that travelled all the way to another country in eight hours was wonderful for me. I couldn’t afford the full trip all the way to France, but this would suffice. At that time I never thought I would travel anywhere further than a country attached to the one I currently lived in. I was happy to be traveling anywhere, though. If I remember correctly there were a lot of people I actually liked on that trip. People who hadn’t made my tween years hell in middle school. There was Les and Brenda, the fledgling couple. Irene, kinda odd girl from ROTC. Pete Laskaris who didn’t spend much time with us. Christa and Kerri. Boy, those two fought over who got to spend more time with me like a pack of hyenas working over a wildebeest. Snapping and yelling at each other. It was funny on some level, but then again watching your friends fight isn’t something you relish. I think we had more fun hanging out in the hotel then any of the locales we actually toured. Even the waterfall which was pretty awesome. Good thing I wasn’t into photography then, I would have totally missed out on the amazing sensation of standing underneath a torrent of water and feeling all of nature’s power. We were soaked for the rest of the day. It’s Canada, people! It was fah-reezing! Anyway, back at the hotel we were all teenagers alone in a hotel with no supervision. You can imagine some of the things we could have gotten into. Thankfully, we were all too innocent and pure to go there. However, Les and Brenda did spend an inordinate amount of time underneath those covers. Kerri and I turned up the faucets in the bathroom to scalding hot and closed the door. The ensuing steam made the others think we were up to no good. I can fully attest on the stand that NOTHING happened. I do remember wandering the city and coming upon the Hotel Frontenac situated on the hill up above Saint Lawrence River (at least I think it was that, Hudson maybe?). It was the first time I felt a vibration in my soul. The one that Nettie talks about in the Color Purple as she first views the shores of Africa. I had caught it, the traveling bug.

October 18th - Cassoulet du Porc et de Mouton

2009-10-18T17:22:00.001-05:00

After reading the recipe I realized how incredibly time consuming it would be. So I've been holding off on this particular recipe. I woke up at 7:34 A.M. to feed the whiney dogs. I usually just go back to bed for a few more hours after the feeding when it's Sunday. Since I knew that dinner was going to be taking me a while today. I got started on it. Little did I know that NINE hours later I would still be in the kitchen layering and simmering the casserole from Hades. I shouldn't be so harsh on it. From the little tastings I've done along the way, I can already tell this is going to be an amazing dinner. Now I just have to wait for a crust to form so I can break it into the white beans with the back of a spoon and then ladle the yummy basting liquid over the top of the whole thing. Sounds delicious, right? I will have to let you know, in another 40 minutes.

Type+Writer 2: Free Write

2009-10-18T17:03:00.002-05:00

Today I am going to tackle my first assignment for Liv Esteban's amazing Type+Writer course. Of course I am starting on the LAST day of class on my first assignment. Who knew my life would be this busy? Who had any idea that DSE would kick off a bevy of ideas and inspirations and thoughts and ideas and projects and stuff? I didn't realize how much I miss designing until I saw some of the amazing things going on in Provo that week. Maybe I just needed a jumpstart for my creative juices. However, getting a free class out of the deal didn't figure into my list of Things to Do. Oh, I was happy and excited to be getting free things. As usual. But I didn't have the time to focus and give this class my all. It only took two weeks to put a few eggs in my basket and get some balls rolling. I did research and looked up ideas. I emailed Jessica my few thoughts. Now I find myself sitting back and waiting for the fruits of my labors to fully flourish. I am not one to sit still though. So as soon as I found a few moments of peace, what did I do? Go running back to Liv's class, that's what! Before that, however, I had to volunteer to run a Bi-monthly challenge at my favorite website in the world: JS.com! It's going to be a Photography Challenge. I like being able to give back to the community that has always supported and encouraged me, no matter what crazy ideas I come up with. Just as an aside, my challenge is something near and dear to my heart - Horror Movies!! Uh, huh. I'm weird like that. I can be reading a sequel to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, whip up a mean cassoulet that takes 10 hours to complete and crave an all day Fright Fest at the same time. That's just me. So many things go into creating the package that is ScrappyGuy. People can say many things about me, but never call me BORING. Bit of a stumble here, so I am going to go into my next topic. This meal I am almost finished with. It's Cassoulet du Porc et de Mouton. After reading the recipe I realized how incredibly time consuming it would be. However, Gordon keeps asking for it. He doesn't ask for much, so I like to give in every now and then. It's only fittin'. I woke up at 7:34 A.M. to feed the whiney dogs. He also got up. This isn't our normal routine. I usually just go back to bed for a few more hours after the feeding when it's Sunday. He wanted to whip up a batch of Cranberry Orange Nut muffins. Since I knew that dinner was going to be taking me a while today. I got started on it. Little did I know that NINE hours later I would still be in the kitchen layering and simmering the casserole from Hades. I shouldn't be so harsh on it. From the little tastings I've done along the way, I can already tell this is going to be an amazing dinner. Now I just have to wait for a crust to form so I can break it into the white beans with the back of a spoon and then ladle the yummy basting liquid over the top of the whole thing. Sounds delicious, right? I will have to let you know, in another 40 minutes. Hmm, this 15 minute writing time set is awfully long. At least I have episode 8, Season One of Ugly Betty to keep me company. One request from the producers? Show more Henry. MUCH more. How could Betty have ever chosen Walter over Henry at the beginning is such a shame. Tick, Tick, Tick. Where is that timer bell? Did I tell you that I am going to Universal Studios in less than two weeks? Yep, another way to feed my Chiller side. Lisa, my sister, and Darrin, my baby brother are meeting down in Orlando for a full 8 hours of Halloween Horror ripped from the Screen. Oh, it promises to be a night of screams and thrills. I just have to decide if I want to drop $100 on a Nikon Coolpix because I am NOT bringing my SLR into a darkened den of iniquity. The Coolpix is supposed to work pretty well at ISO 2000. I bought Darrin one for Christmas a while back, but I don't think I can give up the creative controls of the camera to someone else for the entire evening. Especially when there's tons of gory goodness to be had. Okay, it has to be 15 minutes by now, right?? Right?

Gary / Julia Project

2009-10-17T19:06:00.004-05:00

October 17th

Lobster Murder

I did, I am guilty. I will sign my name to that confession!I murdered a live creature. Well, sort of alive. After I stuffed it in a closed plastic bag in the fridge for two hours, it wasn't exactly 'lively'.I had a completely different reaction to this process of slicing a lobster in half then Julie Powell did. It came very easy to me. The only surprise was how much liquid came squirting out of the poor creature!Threw the meat along with some shrimps into a chowder for dinner. Call the police, I thought it was delicious!

October 12th

Roti De Porc Poele

This one was EASY!! Just brown the pork shoulder, dump some veggies in there and let it sit in the over for two hours. Perfecto!The meat was so delicious, falling apart even. The veggies were mooshed into the sauce and then ladled over the top of the meat. FAN-tastic!

October 11th

Poulet Roti and Gratin Pommes de Terre et Saucissons

I be brave. I try Roast Chicken again. This time I discovered a nice and long sewing needle to use to truss the chicken. Amazing how easy it was today. The needle still needs to be a little longer to go through the breast section as I push the wings 'akimbo'. Can you believe she used that word? The illustration was a bit difficult to decipher, but I made it work. I am going to put a vote in now. Find an easier method of basting a chicken, please. Every ten minutes for two hours is a bit much. I do like the benefits of basting, though. Don't get me wrong. That chicken was so tender and juicy. The gratin was something to try because it involved potatoes, which I had. I think I should have gone with the bechamel instead of the egg and whipped cream route. It came out almost like a breakfast casserole. Especially since I put sausage and mushrooms in there as well.

October 9th

Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons

I have said this before, simple and easy are NOT the same thing. Poaching some fish in white wine and clam juice sounds easy, doesn't it? But then you add the chopping and layering of veggies. After simmering the sauce, you pour it out and beat it with some pasty flour and butter. Very soon you have an amazing yummy sauce!

October 6th

First Dinner party (Krisy, Christina, Katie)Poulet Grilles a la Diable, Haricot Verts a la Creme

I finally had to break down and invite real people to come and enjoy the fruits of my labor. People were beginning to doubt that I was actually doing this. Gordon can't be the only one to benefit, right? That would almost be selfish. I am SO SO SO SO happy that I got half of the food completed yesterday. The kitchen was such a whirlwind as I made the rest of it. I know there's no way I could have completed this entire meal in one night. Oh, my gosh. That chicken came out so beautiful and terribly delicious. You should have seen us gnawing on the carcasses. Such fun!Green beans in a creamy bechemel was such a big hit. Everyone had seconds. Mainly because they didnt' taste like green beans. You should have seen my first pathetic attempt at making a crepe. The pn definitely wasn't hot enough because it came out as a goopy mess. But the other ones after that were fine. Shave some chocolate over those bad boys and your friends will love you for life. Trust me, I know.

October 5th

Ratatouille, Crepes Sucres Finees, Frangipane

I am getting ready for having pepole over tomorrow night. Had some time so I thought I'd getter started. It's a good thing too. Ratatouille took me like two and a half hours to complete. So much slicing and dicing and sauteeing and turning and basting and layering and basting some more. OY! I took Mary's advice and salted the eggplant to let it 'sweat' out some of its juces. Amazing what ended up in the bottom to drain away!Next came the crepe base and the almond cream filling for dessert tomorrow. Loved pulverizing the macaroons. Eating the leftovers is so yummy! The custard was a bit weird and thick. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow.

October 4

Boeuf Bourguingnon

Finally got around to doing Julie's inspiration. Her original recipe that made her think she could do it all. The one she cooked for her fateful visit from Jennifer Jones, who never showed up. Man, did she miss something.This was indded a labor of love. It took an hour alone to brown the meat. Two hour timeline to get it into the oven. And a five hour grand total. Yes! It took me FIVE hours to make this. In the end, it was all about the sauce. Absolute amazingly complex and delicious piece of work. Very proud of meself.

October 1

Campignons farcis, tomates farcies duxelles

Basically, these are stuffed tomatoes using the filling for stuffed mushroom caps. They were okay. I did use some yummy heirloom tomatoes and it was a nice combination against the rough savory filling.
September 28thPate Brisee (cooked), Gratin Aux Fruits de MerI know, I know. I've made the Gratin before. But this time I used scallops and shrimps instead. That cooked pastry crust was most amazing. All of that butter, mmm. I even had some leftover dough. So I rolled it out and baked it as well. It was like a delicious cookie, only better. The center was slightly dense and gooey. So good.I did make a mistake with rolling out the gratin crust though. I didn't want to roll it out too much, afraid that it would tear or what not. It cooked up and was really thick. Mistake noted.

September 21st

Pate Brisee, Pate a Choux and Gnocchi de Pommes de Terre

Today was a "Rain Day" of all things. It's been raining for a week straight and rivers are starting to flood now. Busses couldn't get through so they cancelled school. Of course, most of the teachers were already there. C'est la vie.
Needless to say I had some time on my hand. Which meant that I could attempt that elusive french pastry dough. Loved the frisage motion! I had to work fast and use the heel of my hand. Apparently the palm is too warm for all the TONS of butter up inside here. It's now a lovely big ball in the freezer to be used for some day I need it. Then for dinner I decided to try hand rolling my own gnocchi. Since Gordon loves them so much. Julia says that these things are simple to make. HA! If you call juggling four different pots at once simple, then go for it.I got to use my newest kitchen gadget, a potato ricer. This is the coolest thing EVER!She says to roll them out to 2 1/2 inches by 1 inch. These are much larger than what I am used to. simmer them in a saute pan for 20 minutes and you have some huge honking goodness. Oh yeah!

September 20th

L'Omelette Piperade

Complete and utter mess. I definitely don't have the finesse of Julia. My pan flipping skills are immature at best. However, if you throw some chorizo, queso fresco, sauteed tomatoes, onions and mushrooms at it. It tastes amazing!

September 17th

Carrotes a la Concierge

An hour (an HOUR) to make carrots? I am so glad I did. They were incredible. Simmered down, then fold in some stock and cream. Hit it with a little nutmeg and seasonings. Lastly swirl in some egg yolk and more cream. Taste of Heaven!
I served it with some juicy steaks and sliced tomatoes covered with kosher salt and purple basil from the garden.

September 16th

Gratin Aux Fruits de Mer

There was definitely not enough time left today to do what I wanted. Try reading the recipe for a french pastry crust at 5:30 P.M. when dinner is usually at 6:30. Yeah, you see my conundrum.So tonight I took some liberty with Madame Julia. I made a most delicious salmon bake with a nice bechamel sauce. To imitate the crust I heated up some potato rolls. I served this all with some wild rice and a mixed salad.
September 15thGratin DauphinoiseJust some regular ole scalloped potatoes. Just dotted heavily with butter and shredded smoked gouda cheese. Think MMMM!

September 14th

Timbales de foies de Volaille, Supremes de Volaille Archiduc, tomates a la Provencal

What do you do with leftover chicken livers? Why, make unmolded chicken liver mousse. That's what! I made my first bechamel sauce and mixed it in with pureed livers - not sure I will ever use my blender again btw. Then placed it all in ramekins to bake in a pan of boiling water for half an hour. Very savory. It was supposed to come with a bearnaise sauce, but I thought this creamy topping didn't go with the rest of the plate. And I was right!Stuffed tomatoes are a revelation. The homemade stuffing is so goopy and yummy. Add that to the softened tomatoes and you have a wonderful bite. The chicken was made with a smoked paprika sauce and it all blended so terrific together.
More chocolate cake for dessert. Whee!

September 13th

Poulet Roti a la Normande, champignons sautes au beurre, pommes de terre, Reine de Saba, glacage au chocolat

I have never trussed a chicken. Never. First of all stuffing a heart, liver and gizzard back UP the animal it came from doesn't seem very nice. Then I have to sew it shut. Umm, yeah. I would never have made a good surgeon. One ragged, sticky, barely closed hole later I attempt to wrap the entire carcass up in twine. The poor thing looked like the victim of a bad bondage bout by the end. Next I get to smear the entire thing with softened butter. Very sexy. After all that I get to spend the next two hours in the most tortorous manner imaginable. Turning and Basting and Turning and Basting and Basting and Basting. Gah! I never realized it took so much work to create a roasted chicken. I am very eager to find out how this thing is going to taste. Very eager and very hungry.
Through all this I create a Queen of Sheba chocolate cake that is supposed to have a gooey molten center. I think this is the cake that Eric smeared on his face in the movie. I can only hope it is that good!

September 12th

Potage Parmentier, Bifteck saute au beurre, artichauts au naturale, sauce mayonnaise

This was the first recipe that Julie Powell ever attempted for her Julie/Julia project. So it had to come out amazing, right? I even went out and purchased a food mill. It was actually more like mashed potato soup. The food mill helped it be a lot more thick. But it still needs more seasonings. I bought two t-bone steaks to saute in butter and pour a red wine reduction shining with melted butter over the top. This was a huge piece of meat by the way. It was easy to make, but maybe a smaller cut next time?Boiling artichokes in salted water isn't my normal routine. I usually steam them to death. They turned out okay once you got past the tougher leaves on the outside. Now I was ambitious and thought I could also handle making my own mayonnaise for dipping the leaves in. Everything was going along swimmingly as I poured the oil in slowly. Then I took the top off the processor and tasted a swipe. GROSS! It tasted something like feet that have been kept in the attic for the last six years. I added more lemon juice and salt and pepper. Tried again and it was STILL nasty. 2 cups of good olive oil and three eggs wasted.

September 6th

Hollandaise and Eggs Benedict

I woke up feeling like a challenge. After last night, I felt invincable. So I decided to tackle the dreaded hollandaise sauce. I've never actually had it before so this was going to be an adventure. I followed Julia through the steps and was amazed when the final product was great. It was a little lemony, but still good. Also, in this feat I managed to attempt poached eggs. I don't know what went wrong with that. I boiled the eggs in the water for ten seconds like she said to do it. I added the vinegar so that the yolks would sit up. But as soon as I slid them into the poaching liquid they sank to the bottom. Hmm. Anyway, I did get a nice poached egg at the end. Thought it was strange to place them on a clean towel right out of the water. But it helped make them smooth. For those of you who know me, you realize that eating runny yolks is NOT my thing. I was willing to try them for Julia though. The experience wasn't completely horrible. Eggs Benedict are interesting things just perfect for a sunday afternoon.

September 5th

Escalopes de veau a la creme, risotto, and petits pois frais a l'Anglaise

My first attempt of an actual recipe from Julia Child's MtaoFC had me making three recipes at once. Quite the task, let me tell ya. I like to cook and think I am pretty intermediate in my culinary skills. But these recipes kicked my ASS! I was rushing around the kitchen frantically trying to get pans to deglaze, peas to boil and rice to saute without browning. Yikes!But in the end, it turned out to be an incredible meal. The mushroom sauce for the veal scallops was fantastic. The fresh peas had a terrific texture and the rice was amazing.

DSE Day Three / SpragueFest

2009-09-27T21:45:00.001-05:00

Sigh, our last day at DSE. How has it come this quickly? And why? I must struggle through this fog of despair and tell you about the fun we had today.

That full night of sleep has definitely helped. I felt refreshed and ready for the day of Digi Love. We ate some of Meg's hot pockets for breakfast and of course had coffee. Then headed down to our home for this event, the Bryce Room. When the nice lady, Pam started handing out huge boxes of the new Bamboo Fun, my mouth dropped. I assumed this must mean we get to keep these things, take them home, enjoy, love, thrill... But NOPE! Even though I held my fingers crossed the entire class we didn't get to keep them. Not even a door prize was given out. Pooh.

April Oakes, hmmm. Umm, well, yeah. She taught us about tablet techniques. She did that. But felt it necessary to have our undivided attention on her without once removing our eyes the entire time she was talking. She kept reminding us of this, a lot. I can say I know how my eight year old students feel now.

Perfect timing, Anna Aspnes just ran BACK by me. And I am about to blog on her class of the day. It was Digital Supplies extended. How if you buy one kit, it can be used over and over indefinitely. Tweak a color, change the hue/sat, place an overlay, place a second paper on top of another and play with blending modes. It's all good. I really liked the way she showed how to place a patterned paper over elements and combine the two. Very cool idea!

Lunchtime again. Already? Today was a different sandwich and salad, but still good. Meg was calling up the Chinese restaurant to order our dinner tonight. Shhh, don't tell anyone but we are going to have a surprise dinner and dessert for Candice's birthday after classes tonight!! Gail, Meg, and I sat outside in the sun again and took pictures of the flowers behind us. Had to head back for more classes, of course.

First order of business was Keeping it Real with Tiffany Tillman. She was incredible today. Not only did she serenade Candice for her birthday, but she brought down some excellent advanced techniques. Showing us some mind blowing ways to make our elements look more realistic on the page. I especially love the idea of giving an element a drop shadow and then moving that effect to it's very own layer so that you could warp and manipulate it to show off depth! Plus, she had some more incredible brushes to share with us. Loved the layout we created too.

The moment that Cell Block 4 has waited for has arrived. Class time with Jessica Sprague!! The second she walked in the door, she was greeted with intense applause, shout outs, and whistles to beat the band! She smiled through it all, even with a bloody nose. Apparently the last class tackled her and did a pig pile or something. I dunno. NO! Not really. This dry Utah air finally got to her and her nose decided to wreak havoc on her outfit. We spent about five minutes taking the Spragueground Group Shot.

Then it was onto class materials. That durn projector was not playing nice today. It kept blinking on and off during her speech. Which, by the way, was one of the most well thought out and easiest to understand lessons of the entire event. She was discussing the elements of design and how to manuever your layout viewers to see what you want them to see. Eventhough I've taken many an online class with Ms. Jessica, it was just different listening to her in real life. She is always so funny, down to earth, and attentive to her crowd. She even got Kristen to entertain us with some interpretive dance. All too soon, it came to an end. We had to let her go to her last class of the day. NO! Say it isn't so!!

OUR last class was with Laura Vanderbeek on improving your photography. She had some good advice, but her teaching style was slightly slower than I would have liked. Although, she did let me play with her wide angle lens so I could get a cool shot of what an event table looks like AFTER an awesome digital event. Box of Krispy Kreme a la Kari and all~

We had to rush out to the lobby directly after class to pick up the Chinese delivery. Gail and I dragged all our stuff upstairs to the room then headed back down to the amphitheater for Candice's surprise party. You should have seen all of the food that we had spread out for the twenty or so Spraguers. Oh, wait. I can insert a picture of it later on. Watch out for that!

But even the food couldn't compare with the luscious cupcakes that Kari brought in. OH MY! They were good. There was red velvet, lemon meringue, mint chocolate chip, german chocolate, strawberry shortcake, and many many many other goodies to try. I love me some cupcakes.

Next, we had to rush into the Grand Ballroom for the closing ceremonies. Prizes were given out, mostly to Kendra who won for one of the page contests, and to everyone at my table except me. But I was not sad. Lori Anderson found me and gave me a special treat all of my own. A Tim Holtz grungy alpha CD. Oooooh! Yeah.

Kristen came and tapped us during the slideshow so that we could sneak out and make it to the Comedy show that was known as the Thrillionaires. Jessica and Jared sprang these free tickets on us for all the love we give to them. Wasn't that way too nice? Yeah, I thought so too. We took over the tiny theater and monopolized the entire improv show with our shouts and suggestions. They were freakin' hilarious! Can I just tell you how funny it is to hear them sing, "Be nice to me, or I'll Crop you out"???? Hee, hee. Yep, it was that funny.

Or when they struggled to find a cure for the dreaded new disease, Scrapitis? The symptoms range from blurry vision, to weak wrists, to anxiety when not able to get online. Very scary indeed. But all was solved in due time and of course the end results was photographed and documented for the world to enjoy!

The actors were so nice that they even took many many photos with us afterwards. Dave, the big tall guy, had his mom take all of the shots. My favorite was the Spirit Fingers shot. Love it!

We wandered back to the hotel and into the lobby. Jessica told us her thinking for the next Spraguefest (no details yet) and how she was already looking forward to it. Joan presented her with a beautiful metal plaque from a nearby hotel display and we had Candice take a group shot of us all from above. Oh, I didn't want it to end.

DSE Day Two / SpragueFest

2009-09-27T09:05:00.002-05:00

Can you believe I completely forgot to blog about Friday's adventures??? Beth M and I figured it's because we are having THAT much fun!!

I'll catch you up now.

Getting up at 6:30 A.M. on vacation is not fun. But we had tons of digi stuff going on to make up for it. We made it to our first class of the day with Amanda Rockwell. She taught some simple, yet eye popping ways to grunge up patterned papers. And how to make some shine on your stuff. Now I can get closer to my favorite real time paper Basic Grey. You should see what we can do with our gradient tool!

Next came Layer Masks with Anna Aspnes. How cool is it to learn about clipping from a teacher with an English accent? Actually she just jogged past me in the lobby. HA! I am off topic here. She is in the same frame of mind as Ms. Jessica. NEVER crop photos again if you know how to use your clipping feature.

Our minds were being fed with digi knowledge, so it's only right that we feed our bodies as well. DSE provided lunch for us. A huge hoagie with ham and cheese, a great pasta salad, cookies (with M&M's) and an apple, oh the soda too. We were all feeling kinda chilly so we sat out on the patio to defrost. Meg, JeninSF, Kendra (Terebene) and I sat out there and chatted. We may have hatched an idea for a possible JS.com class. Shhh!

After lunch we headed back in for the awesome-ness that is Tiffany Tillman. She of the strut and songtracks in her head. Funniest digi girl on two legs! She was here to let us play with Brushes and more Brushes. The floral framed brushes she handed out were so intricate and wonderful. I am going to be using them over and over.

Next was the quick mini album with Lori Anderson, my new favorite person in the world (mostly for her gracious attitude, thanks again!). I think I might be turning this album into a DSE book. I have tons of pictures to use.

Our final class of the day was Typography with April Anderson. Poor thing was so sick. Yet she hung in there like a trooper. She talked about how to attract attention to your titles with different weights and color. How to stay away from swirly fonts for entire journaling boxes, too hard to read. Which I found out when I was making that bridal shower invitation last month. She also discussed placement of fonts. Such fun.

We had plans to meet up with the Spraguers for dinner. 21 of us headed en masse down the street and descended upon Gloria's Little Italy. They never knew what hit them. I think we were louder than the band. Ask Joan about them, it seems they are from California. I managed to make a toast to Ms. Jessica, thanking her for giving us a home on the internet. She made a toast to all of us thanking us for supporting her. As if we could do anything else! Food was good when it finally arrived and we ended up taking some back to our little fridge.

I was very eager to be getting back in bed early. Going to bed past midnight and getting up at 6 is not my style. So I crawled into bed with Julia Child (hmm, that sounds dirty) and read more about her life in Paris. Such a hoot this girl is, let me tell ya!

DSE - Day One/ Spraguefest

2009-09-25T08:52:00.004-05:00

WHOO YAH!!

I am sitting in my first DSE class!

Oops, sorry, wrong day.

Okay, Okay. So yesterday was the Kick Off for DSE. For those of you who aren't in the know, DSE stands for the BEST Digital Scrapbooking Experience. But, the goods didn't start until 2 P.M. or so. Which gave us the entire morning to jusy be lazy lay abouts. By 10:30, after reading in bed for the past three hours, my mind was going stir crazy. I had to get up and do something. You won't believe what my head came up with.

Work out? On Vacation? Uh-huh, that was me. Here's a list of my activities: Rode the stationary for ten minutes, lifted weights and such for 20, walked for 10, swam four rotations, sat in the hot tub for 15 (totally sinful!), the sauna for five (it was hot in there), then a shower. It was great.

I made it back to the room just in time for lunch break. Good, I was starving. As we were walking around we picked up Kendra, then Candice and Michelle Van Etten. Sushi was our mission. Somewhere along the way we lost both Candice and Michelle to DSE instructor duties. We compensated for some of the worst service available to us in Utah, and she blamed the Miso. Umm, it's powder you pour in chicken stock???

By this time it is 1:45 and we race back to the hotel for our first class, Tips and Tricks in Illustrator. I don't know how Carina Gardner did it, but 50 minutes passed without me noticing. None of us in the room were very familiar with the program so that took some doing to familiarize ourselves with the tools and such. I could have spent an entire day listening to her, the program is so awesome. Sadly, we had to leave for our next class.

Little did we know that we could have stayed for another half an hour with Carina. After listening to the Memory Mixer Calendar lady for five minutes, I wish I had. She rambled and backtracked and stumbled through her OWN program. Yeah, we never even touched the idea of making our calendar. Good thing I only paid $5 for this. Left early to register the DSE.

Racing back up to the room to change and get ready for Candice's class was fun. Thankfully we caught her in the hall and asked about bringing our laptops or tripods. Nyet on both. We get there in plenty of time, but then Laurie asked us for our class tickets. Grrr. I book it back to the room to grab both of ours and my hoodie as well. It is freezing in the class.

Then passed the next hour and ten minutes of absolute goodness I could imagine. I know for certain I could follow Candice around for an entire day and not feel a bit of guilt! Just listening in on her thought processes and the little tweaks she makes and the directions she gives to the model and how cute she is. Wonderful.

Meg and I practiced a little afterwards and then headed back upstairs to grab all of our equipment to have it ready for the Kick Off. Joan was so awesome to have brought us packed a most delicious chicken artichoke pizza from Brick Oven. It was great chewing and listening to Jessica introduce all of the characters we'd see this weekend.

Jessica's Kick Off speech was, as always, very moving. She reminded us why we do what we do. I love listening to her stories of how things come about, especially that tattoo! When she got to the part about the connections, I so wanted her to give out kudos to the awesome-ness that is the Spragueground. Disappointment is easy to take with Ms. Jessica. Her train of thought made total sense too.

Afterwards they gave out prizes. I love prizes, don't you? But I never seem to win good stuff at these events. It's very sad. I tell ya. Especially when they give out a wireless printer all-in-one, or a cricut with SIX cartridges. GAH!! My name was called for something. It was a paper pack of actual paper. I wasn't in the room for it, though. V. sad. We all got some time to explore the Digit-alley of sponsors and booths. That was cool.

To end this perfect day, we went out for incredible gelato. We ended up in the bar sipping merlot and chatting about our day. Off to bed at 12:30 to be up for 6:30 A.M.

Fun, Fun, Fun.

SpragueFest Day Two

2009-09-24T08:41:00.003-05:00

A glorious day. One full of sight seeing, freezing falls, tours through the canyon, pristine aspen groves, a little Sun Dance, an autobiography, three hour lunches with an amazing group of people, a Fly Girl, naps, dinner with an amazing group of people, special surprises and churros filled with Bavarian cream!

You're probably wondering how all of this fits together. Let me back up and fill in some details.

The alarm went off at 7 A.M. MST. This translates into 9 A.M. EST, but it just didn't feel like it for some reason. Showers and breakfast in the concierge lounge. Terrific perk, by the way, thanks Bennett! Then it was time to meet up with the Spraguers in the lobby. Little pockets of groups wanted to go every which way, but we made plans to meet up for lunch.

Meg, Gail, and I really wanted to do the Alpine Loop tour and see the foliage changing in the canyon. The drive wasn't that far away and we started with Bridal Veil Falls. There are three of them which cascade down a sheer rock face. At this time of the day the whole area was in shadow. We took one step out of the car and about froze into popsicles. I am so thankful that I decided not to wear shorts today. Weather Channel said to expect high 70's all week, so I only brought one pair of jeans. I might need to go shopping later on. But I digress, we finagled another family to take our picture while we shivered in front of the falls, then we raced back to the car's warm embrace totally forgetting that we had promised to take the family's picture! Meg jumped out and saved us from purgatory.

On up into the canyon we drove. The next stop was Sundance. Yep, THE Sundance. The one of the film festival and Robert Redford and all. It was pretty up there with the ski lift looking all forlorn. The grounds crew was busy setting up tents for next weekend. We run into another Sprague group of Amy, NanaJeanne, and Joan S. Mix and Mingle then head out for a drive through this beautiful twisty turning road full of those white aspen trees. A forest of white birch is truly something to see (pictures inserted later).

The rest of the canyon was great, but please don't stop frequently to take pictures on the side of the road! We got yelled at several times.

Drove through American Fork and down through Cedar Hills (can't get away from school, can I?) then back to the Riverwood Shopping area. This is where we found Jessica and the crew hanging out in Borders. Beth and I debated the virtues of Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies. Laurie and I tried to convince Tori she TOTALLY needs to finish Time Traveller's Wife. Then Liv saw me looking over "My Life in Paris" and combined it with her Buy One, Get One Half Off stash! Yay! Can't wait to read Julia Child's autobiography.

About twenty happily chattering woman and me head over to The Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch. Thus proceeds the greatest three hour lunch as I sit directly across from Jessica Sprague and Candice Stringham. Could I go to Heaven now? At the end of the meal, we all scramble into the trolley car with Provo-Orem on top for a group shot. At this time it was discovered the many past lives of Ana Cabrera. She has trained the executive chefs of PF Changs, she has danced on In Living Color as an actual Fly Girl BEFORE J-Lo, she has worked with TuPac, sung on Arsenio, and has a design life as well. So when we asked her to climb up on the table to get in the shot, she was right there! So cool.

Back to the room, without having visited the Rocky Mountain Candy Factory, for laying around and napping.

For dinner we walk over to the restaurant called Los Hermanos just down the street from the hotel. We had been giggling and preparing for those delicious adult beverages. Our hopes were dashed when the 12 year old waiter, Kyle, hands us the menu with the words Non Alcoholic above the margarita list. Huh? What? Jessica explains that we can just ask and they will add some for us. She got my hopes up for nothing when I asked blondie to add some rum in my Peachy Rico, he denied my request. Huh? What? Hmph.

Dinner was okay, but the best moment came when we ordered the churros. Oh, My, God. They were warm and filled with a luscious cream and came in this tall shot glass that collected all of the dislodged cinnamon goodness. We debated on whether or not to lick that up too. They were so good!

Back to the hotel lobby where Jess and Liv surprised us all with a heartfelt and teary eyed speech about how wonderful we all were. Friendship is a sheltering tree! She gave us goodie bags that had some wonderful gifts in there. Then we broke apart and headed to bed.

Was that enough detail?

SpragueFest Day One

2009-09-23T09:06:00.002-05:00

Good morning,
I am here with my good friends Meg and Gail as we stumble around getting ready for the day. By Utah standards it is only 8 A.M. so it's still kinda early. We didn't get in until 12:30 last night.

Let's back up a bit so you can hear all the ADVENTURE I had yesterday.

It seemed like so many things were conspiring to keep me from Provo. And gosh DARN it I wasn't having none of that! Of course the flooding of 2009 in Georgia was the first obstacle. Schools closing because they are under water would be an obstacle for anyone. They closed school again on Tuesday, which turned into a brilliantly sunny warm day. Go figure.

Thankfully the flood waters had abated for the most part. So I leisurely ate lunch and read my book. Around 1:45 I headed to Gail's house. The first road blockage came at the on ramp to 285. The next came at the on ramp to I-75. Then Gail is calling me frantically because we can't find Bennett who was driving us to the airport. I arrive 15 minutes later than I expected and lo' and behold, there is Bennett waiting in his driveway. Ta Dah!

We head over to get Gail and hit another snag. The on ramp to 285 is closed here too. None of us has a GPS to reroute us. Bennett drives around on instinct and eventually finds us an entrance to the highway so that we can manuever to the airport. At this time it is about 3:30 and he casually asks, "When's your flight again?" Umm, at 4:25.

His eyes widen incredulously as he steps on the gas pedal (Gail's contribution) and manages to get us to the airport in ten minutes. We scramble out of the car and race over to the curbside baggage. They take one look at our tickets and tell us we are too late to check. Huh? What? Apparently there is a rule that says if you don't arrive 45 mins before your flight leaves, you can't check. Therefore you'll have to be BUMPED to the next flight which isn't for another two hours!!

He tells us to go to the gate with our bags and check them there. We make our way inside and start going through the security when one of the attendants pulls Gail aside and makes her check her bag in one of those overhead storage size thingies. Yeah, it doesn't fit. She kicks us out of line and back to the front desk. Standing around for a bit we manage to get to an attendant who tells us to just try a different checkpoint. Which we did. No problems until...

Gail gets stopped again for having liquids in her bag. They search it and pull out her toothpaste, hair spray, face wash, and various other accoutrements. And hand her back her bag. Glumly, we proceed to the terminal.

By now it is 4:10 and we hear the final boarding call. Racing up to the gate we hand in our e tickets and make it to the ramp as they close the doors. GAH!

Being the last person to board a plane sucks. Everyone has already had time to stuff all of their baggage and their grandmother into the overhead compartments. I have to go five seats back to find an open spot for my camera, and then another three back for my bag. Gail? We take her bag all the way to the back of the plane and find nothing. As we stand around wondering what to do, we heard this announcement, "Would the lady with the BIG RED bag please proceed to the front of the aircraft." Mortification sets in as I scramble past everyone with the offending luggage held over my head.

One bright point in all of this? There were TWO open seats right next to me, so Gail didn't have to sit in between two other people by herself. The flight was uneventful. Although coming in over the Rockies was a beautiful sight.

We land and have to wait for everyone to get off the plane in order to retrieve our bags. Not bad when you think we no longer have to stand around staring at that rotating torture device known as the baggage carousel. Carousel implies something fun and jaunty, right? Not so much.

Meg and Joan are waiting for us and we walk right out of the airport and drive up to Provo to drop our bags in the room at the Marriot. Meg is a glorious individual. If you don't already know this, then you will learn when you meet her. Guess what she had waiting back in the room for us? Sweet Tea Vodka and lemonade. Perfection!

We meet up with the other Spraguers in the lobby and pack into cars to head to Kari's old working place, The Training Tables, for their famous cheese fries and burgers. Can I just tell you that it is an experience to sit in a restaurant and eat when across the aisle sits Jessica Sprague, Candince Stringham, Ana Cabrera and Liv Esteban. I live the good life, let me tell ya.

Jessica is not feeling well these days. But that didn't hold her back from wearing super cute shoes and eating cheese fries. Get better soon!

Finally back to the hotel for the most amazing German Chocolate cake brownies and much needed sleep!

Provo, here I come!

2009-09-22T10:25:00.002-05:00

The long awaited day has finally arrived. It is here. The time has come, etc etc.

What started as a glint in Annette Harding's eye at CKU-Houston when she so inadvertantly let it slip that a 'digi event' was in the works, has come to fruition.

In about four hours I should be at the airport waiting to board the plane to Salt Lake City, Utah. I will have my good friend Gail next to me and plenty of 80's tunes geared up on the Ipod. The flight is on time and no inclement weather is on the radar. So all is good.

I just called Meg, who arrived in Provo on Sunday. She's about to meet up with some other early Spraguers and the Ms. Jessica herself in about half an hour. They've got an entire fun-filled tour of SLC planned for the day. The flight won't land until after 6 P.M. and Meg will swing by to pick us up at the airport.

Then the fun begins!

I'm kinda upset at how all of my planning was in waste, though. When DSE (digital scrapbooking event) was announced and then the Spragueground decided to combine it with this year's Meet and Greet, I debated. Debated whether I could give up an entire week at school. This would entail all of my three personal leave days being used, plus two days without pay. I wanted to keep this trip's cost down as low as I could, so I opted to only take the three personal days. This way I'd be in school with the kiddos for the beginning of the week, have a day of fun with the other Spraguers and be there for the DSE extravaganza.

I felt even better about my decision when the (BLEEPITY BLEEP) furlough days were handed down from above. Surely didn't want to lose even more days without pay.

However, Mother Nature went on a rampage here in Georgia. It rained for an entire week straight. And not just any rain, but down pours. It was yucky, but livable since we needed the extra wetness. Then came Monday morning.

About 3 A.M. I wake up out of a dead sleep to flashing lights in my window. Freaky, I know. But it turned out to be a wacko lightning storm. Ran immediately to unplug the laptop because I definitely did not want that plugged in if a bolt decides to hit the house. (Could you imagine digital scrapping without a laptop??). Back to bed because it is a school day after all.

Get up at my usual time and arrive at school by 7 A.M. As I am squeaking down the hallway to my room, one of the fifth grade teachers says that school has been postponed for an hour and a half. There's been some flooding. Oh? Really? Hmm, okay.

Well, that flood just keeps getting worse and worse. If you haven't seen the news from GA, just youtube some of the footage. Entire schools and subdivisions under water. Very scary.

My thoughts definitely go out to the families that are suffering right now, but you could imagine how upset I was that they cancelled school entirely!

You mean, I could have gone for the entire week and not missed a single moment of Sprague-y goodness?

Oh, it gets better. They cancelled school for Tuesday as well....

Here I sit with nothing to do and four hours to while away until my flight. Everything is looking good for it to be on time with no delays - knock on wood.

So, I will enjoy the time that I was given in Provo and just make up for it by having an even better time!

See y'all there!

Last Day

2009-07-08T11:01:00.003-05:00

June 27, 2009 1:05P.M.

After being humiliated by the fey flight attendant over a pen, I can write my final Italian entry. At the moment I am flying 536mph and 34,000 feet over the Adriatic Sea. The country I've spent three weeks hiking and enjoying recedes behind me. Yet, it won't be so easily forgotten. I wish I had thought to bring a pedometer to calculate the number of mile I've covered on this exploration. It feels like I walked from Rome to Venice and back. But the blistered feet and cracked heels do nothing to belittle getting to see Italy for myself.

The unique charms of the Cinque Terra town as they clutch to the rock face, the rolling hills and colors of Tuscany, the innate charm of the watery Venice, and the modern bustle of the ancient Rome were all as promised. Even the weather cooperated for the entire trip to make this an unforgettable foray across the Italian shores.

In the words of Ceasar, "Veni Vidi Vici". I too have come, seen, and conquered so much. It will always be Bella Italia.

I have arrived at 10:50P.M. Italy time. 4:50P.M. in the ATL. I have arrived with everything I left with. No one made any strange advances or even looked at us crosswise. We felt completely safe walking down dark dank alleys at all hours throughout Italy. My fears before the trip seem to be completely unfounded.

But I think I had to go through that period of trepidation in order to come out on the other end unscathed and completely in love with Italy. However, I never had that "Let's buy a villa and runaway to Italy" feeling come over me. I think I am too enamored with comforts to do that just now. Some day though, my feelings may change.

Gordon wants to try Greece or southern France next year. Hmmm

Day Nineteen

2009-07-08T10:40:00.002-05:00

June 26, 2009 6:15P.M.

Nicola was just by to finalize things. She was kind enough to call us a taxi for tomorrow at 7A.M. (*GASP*). We whined about several things - the scaffolding blocking our view, the workers clanging at 7:00A.M., and not letting up for any possible nap, plus the seepage coming in from the windows that soaked all our souveniers- in hopes of a rebate. No such luck. I'll proably write to Ernesto to see if he will do anything for us.

Gordon just finished the evil business of paking. I'm listening to BBC once again explain how Michael Jackson died. How touching that he couldn't live in a world without Farrah Fawcett. We're going downstairs for a drink. Then maybe we'll see Angels and Demons as our last Roman Hurrah.

Today we didn't accomplish much. We planned for the Archeobus to take us out to the Appian Way. We were all coffeed and ready at the Piazza Venezia stop by 9A.M. awaiting the first bus. Yeah right. We heard from the red bus that the green bus no longer stops here at this stop. We have to race over to the Colloseo stop a half mile away and still have to wait 25 minutes. Strange business.

The ride was uninspiring to say the leat. The sporadic narration was garbled. We got off at the last stop. Walked on the original portion of the Roman Road to Herod's tribute to his wife Cecilia Metella. After he was cleaered of her death he wanted to show how much he loved her. Kinda like OJ.

Next came the worst decision of the entire trip. We both were really interested in ancient acquaduct park. Thus follows the torturous two hours of our lives. Two miles alongside speeding cars and skirting death around every corner we arrive in a very unnervy part of town. The park was full of graffiti and hardly had anyone in it.

We eat our paninis quickly while we ogle the shirtless jogger resting not far away. Then we walk back the same 2 miles again. We grab a lemon soda and an arancia fanta then go look at dead people.

The catacombs of San Sebastini were very interesting. As I strolled through the resting places of ancient Christians I had to wonder if 2,000 years from now will folks wander through our cemetaries in awe?

We only had to wait 5 minutes for the bus which we have to ride all the way to Termini since they no longer stop at Bocca della Verite. Grrrr. We hop on the No. 64 bus and get to use our Roma Pass finally.

Naps, showers, pack and Nicola. We tried that theater she suggested to see A&D but it's no longer showing the movie. Durn. So we wander around and decide on a place for dinner. I try carbonara and saltimbocca. Both were good.

the phone alarms are now set and the BBC still broadcasts MJ's demise. More tomorrow en route.

Day Eighteen

2009-07-08T10:22:00.002-05:00

June 25, 2009 9:00P.M.

Tomorrow we're planning an early start, so I wanted to get a head start on this entry. It's been a semi-castle day since most of it was spent on a bus.

We got our cappuccino's this morning from our Piazza Eustachio. We paid only to stand at the counter today. I almost forgot there was a difference in prices for sitting at tavolos.

As we finished who do we literally walk right into? Allison and Bryson. It must be fate. We caught up with all that had gone on since we parted in Tuscany. A flood in Elba, train rerouted, disfavor with Milan, and the first impressions of our Rome streets (scary!) We walk towards the Piazza Navona to leave them at an Internet Spot. Then proceed to walk past them no less than six times. We couldn't figure out where the sightseeing bus stop was located.

With much relief we locate it 200 meters from where the Information Desk guy said it was. We ride this thing for two hours past sights seen and not. At one stop I wasn't properlly wedged in while I was taking a picture and almost flipped over the edge from a sudden stop.

We ride it through over to the Borghese Gardens stop. Picking up some paninis and lemon soda we explore the scruffy area. The lake, with boat (batiche?) rentals was the best. We walk back to the Spanish Steps in daylight. Then on back t the apartment for a nap.

If you can believe it we ride the sightseeing bus again. This time for different kinds of pictures. We were going to get off at Bocca della Verite for the famous Moment of Truth statue. But arrived too late. We ride the bus all the way back to Navona. Then drop off camera and change into long pants. We sit around til 7 P.M. then head off to a restaurant Gordon had noticed on Tuesday.

Thinking about the name, That's Amore, you would think the place would be complete kitsch. Well it did have candle dripped Chianti bottles and piped in Dean Martin. But the food was really good. The fettuccini tartufo nero and the grilled sausage were huge hits. We ended the fine feast with a a spot of limoncello and talks of what we'll take away from this trip.

Way too many memories, that's for sure.

Day Seventeen

2009-07-08T10:12:00.002-05:00

June 25, 2009 11:43A.M.

I'm late in writing today. We tried to stay in bed as long as possible even with the workers dropping everything possible.

Yesterday was set aside for Ancient Rome Day. We were set to tour the Collosseum, Palantine Hill, and the Forum.

Once again Rick Steves was right with his advice on how to skip lines. With our Roma Pass in hand we strut past the throngs of sweaty tourists standing in line. The colloseo was great. you could almost hear the screams for blood and hear the cries of lions and the poor as teach was slaughtered for entertainment.

Palantine Hill was kind of boring so we found a spot overlooking the Colloseo for lunch. Then back in to finish up the Forum. Our last Rick Steves audio.

Since it's only about 2, we trot on over to the Quirinale and the National Museums of Rome. The Diocletian Baths were closed.

On the way back we decide to attempt the Trevi. Vicky was right in her assessment that it would be packed. We muscle our way up to the fountain in order to toss our coins. 20 cents for each.

Back to the apartment for nap and shower.

Oops, wait! We decide on an antipasti outside of the Pantheon. Expensive stuff.

We walk all th eway down Via Del Corso to the Poppolo for our last Angels and Demons tour. It was closed. We wander back to the Spanish Steps for some night time shots.

Dinner was pizza (with a hard boiled egg on it) and beer. Then gelato over the Fontane di Trevi at night. Such an experience.

Day Sixteen

2009-07-08T10:02:00.002-05:00

June 24, 2009 8:54A.M.

Awaken to clangs and bangs outside our window. They're doing something to the building. Scaffolding blocks our view of the Pantheon. It hasn't mattered since we've been getting up early anyway. But today was a no rush one. We're up now.

Yesterday was a Vatican Day. Five horus and almost 300 pictures later I'm exhausted. Robert Langdon (Angels and Demons) was right. The Vatican owns a LOT of stuff.

We got there early in hopes of seeing Jim, Julie, and Allison for their 9:15 time. We figured out we were in the totally wrong spot for our tour. Scramble around a bit and discover the right location in time.Thankfully the reserved ticket line was much shorter. We start right off making our way to the Sistine Chapel. Through the Tapestry Room, through the Map Room, through the Candelabra Room (don't laugh), to reach our destination. A constant announcement reminded us that taking pictures was strictly forbidden. It was kind of hard to hear it though, what with all the shutter clicks and flashes going off.

After the Vatican Museums we take the shortcut to St. Peter's and get to skip security. (Take the Right exit as you leave Michaelangelo's masterpiece). Tour the pope's tombs and then step inside the Basillica. Oh My God - literally. the place was extravagant. Our final stop was the Cupola. Elevator only half way, crazy slanting walls and tight stairways the rest. But the view...oh! the view.

Castel du Sant Angelo was next. The Illuminati Lair. We toured all through this and even climbed to the Terrazza for a bite to eat. Finally eat cannoli. While I'm at it also cross off two people kissing on both cheeks, two Italian men holding arms, and nuns taking cigarette breaks. No, not really. But there does seem to be a priest on every corner.

Head back towards the apartment to tour the Pantheon. Then take a nap before dinner. Tonight's recommendation took us over the river into the yuppie Trastevere. Strange juxtapositioning of upwardly mobiles surrounded by heavily graffited walls.

After dinner we make the trek out to see the Cooloseum at night. Went the right way this time. Finally back to bed.

Day Fifteen

2009-07-08T09:50:00.002-05:00

June 23, 2009 8:11A.M.

Eight hours on a train with every screaming child in Italy and no food spells = FUN! It was sad not to enjoy another catered breakfast, but we had a train to catch early. The station's cafe was odd. You have to stand in one long line to get a ticket to go stand in another long line. Confusion. I grab some apples and croissants to go with our cappuccino and board. It was supposed to be a four hour train ride. A littl down the coast and then turn inwards to cut across Italy to reach Rome. Thought it was odd when we just kept traveling down the coast. They made announcements over the intercom, but since they were all in Italian we didn't pay any attention. Well, not until the locals that surrounded us in 2nd class started making complaint noises. No idea what is going on. We turn on the gps and find our location is no where near we were are supposed to be. When it hits the six hour point I go to find the food cart. It's seven carrozza's back. After I push my way through all the legs and luggage in the aisle to get there I am told they have absolutely no food left. Not even a crumb or a can of Pringles. Oh, they have water though. Apparently those announcements in Italian alerted all the Italian speakers that it was going to be a long ride and they all invaded the food cart long before I show up. I am quite sad.

We finally made it to Rome and walk 45 minutes to the apartment to meet with our city manager, Nicola. The entire flat is no bigger than our bedroom at home. Allison was right. The pantry, complete with micro wave and 2 stove hubs sits on top of a small fridge. it's still bigger than our old place in the Marina district.

We wander off to Piazza Navona for dinner in front of Bellini's Fountain of the Four Rivers (that's and Angels and Demons stop if you recall). Then decide to see the Colloseo at night.

After walking in circles hopelessly for an hour we call it a night. After stepping over the drunk hobo lady on our stoop that is.

Day Fourteen

2009-07-08T09:37:00.002-05:00

June 22, 2009 7:33A.M.

It was nice to be able to wake when we wanted. Took our time then went down for breakfast. A spread sort of like in Monterosso. Except the cappuccino comes from a push button machine and only fills half the cup. Eventhough I complained a lot, I miss the little Asian lady from Cinque Terra bringing us those cups full of a rich thick foam. A trade off, I guess.

Gordon and I walked over to the train station to see how long it would take us and to get our tickets for Monday. Good thing too, it was packed again.

Next was the Vaporetto No.1. This route travels from the train station, down the Grand Canal, and out to the airport. Takes about an hour one way. Rick Steves led us down the lane of decaying palaces. It was a nice ride, so nice we took it all the way back.

I noticed something on this boat. There is a vast difference between workers here and in America. Here you get hunky adult men who work as basically bus drivers. Now where in America can you find that?

Back to the room for a camera battery, then off to explore the Carnareggio area. We eat lunch in the garden of an osteria underneath grape vines, actual grape vines. At 2:30 they kick us out. First time that's happened.

After more walking we grab the closest bald muscular gondolier and take a 30 minute 80 euro ride around San Paolo area. It was an extreme leisurely pace and not as romantic as I expected. Weird having tons of people take our picture.

San Marco and Rick Steves had a date next. We wandered the square for an hour listening to his audio. We thought about climbing the campignale and once we heard that a lift takes you up, we grabbed it. The view did not disappoint.

since it's about 5:45 at this point we check into seeing the Basillica but it closed at 5. Run over to the Doge's Palace and are barred entrance. Apparently it takes two hours to go through before they close at 7. They won't let us in at 6. Oy!

So off to the hotel to hang out. Today wasn't well planned so Gordon suggested we do up one for our stay in Rome. He slept while I devised. It wasn't that hard since there's still so much to see.

We're both foot worn and exhausted from 13 days of non stop that we decide to venture out only for dinner. The concierge recommends a few places. One is too far, the other menu doesn't appeal. We end up at a local pizza joint where the waiter defintiely showed preferance to the locals.

One more gelato and off to LaLa Land.

Day Thirteen

2009-07-08T09:26:00.003-05:00

June 21, 2009 9:25A.M.

Yep, I'm in Venice eating breakfast at Hotel Ca'D'Oro. Amongst the comforts again. No stairs, hair dryers, grocery stores, no stairs, elevators, buses (well, vaporettos), no driving, and no stairs.

We ended up leaving Allison behind at the castle because it was 6:45. Time to leave the parking lot. It's a good thing we left then. Crazy trying to drive thru Florence with tons of one ways.

Drop Jim and Julie at the train station then struggle to get back to Avis. We arrive there about 7:45 and have to wait for them to open. Anxious moments of, "Will we make the train?" ensue. Get checked out, they never mention the dented bumper, and race to the stazione only to wait in another line for tickets. Get to the window and are told 2nd class is full. Have to pay extra but it was worth it to get to Venizia 3 hours earlier. The train pulls in and Gordon says I have 5 minutes to find cappuccino. Being driven by mad coffee cravings I do it and we board in time.

The 3 hour trip was uneventful except for the rain and Gordon finishing Angels and Demons. We drive across Golfe di Venizia and enter the watery city.

I have found where all the tourists are. They're at the Venice train station. This place is mobbed with people. Well, the five cruise ships in the harbor probably don't help. We make our way thru the crowds, up and over seven bridges, until 45 minutes later and one nice shopkeeper full of directions we find the hotel tucked in some obscure alley.

Since it was only noon they were nice enough to let us have our room. the canal view is there and it's okay. I didn't heaer the angels trumpet when I threw open the shutters though.

What happens next involves six hours of constant walking. From the Rialto Bridge to San Marco, to Accademia to Gritti Palace and back. My feet are kililng me from all the topsy turvy concrete blocks. Venice is HUGE!

Naps before dinner aren't unheard of on this vacation. We take the concierge's recommendation for dinner. I've been cold all day so we moved inside. Check two more things off my Italian To Do List: Risotto (with shrimp, yum!) and Tiramisu (Uck!).

Back to Rialto and San Marco. So glad we did because these two sights lit up were fantastic. Especially since Saint Mark's Square was FLOODED! I got some shots of folks splashing through the above-ankle deep water. Hotel then sleep.

Day Twelve

2009-07-08T09:11:00.002-05:00

June 20, 2009 6:08A.M.

The dreaded moment has arrived. Saying goodbye to the Castle Sweet Castle. This is going to be hard. I am just glad we got to spend an entire week here in Tuscany. We all agreed that this type of trip is preferable to a tour. Following an umbrella is not my idea of a vacation.

Yesterday was our last full day. G&G and J&J stayed for a castle day this time. Allison and Bryson headed off for the Boboli Gardens. We asked reception if we cuold view various rooms in Montegufoni and they were more than happy to drag us around.

La Grotto was first and the best. Amazingly detailed paintings covered every surface. La Cuppola was next and had more of a castle feel, but that domed ceiling was beautiful. Finally the Torre room. I wanted to go all the way up the tower but it was covered in pigeon poop.

Afterwards we walked around the vineyards. Looking at the baby grapes gave me a deeper appreciation of the hard constant work that goes into wine making.

Naptime was next. We awoke in time to leave for another tour. This time it was for Frattoria San Michele a Torri. A local award wining vino e olio factory. This wine tour just felt different than any other. More real somehow. It ended with deep rich olive oil drizzled generously over bruschetta and pomodoro. The guide also put out some amazing meats. We left with bottles for dinner and a case sent home. Really good Chianti Classico.

Our final dinner at Castello di Montegufoni was a quiet affair. Each already reminiscing about one helluva vacation. Promises to return next year were made. Happy places built. And lasting friendships made.

Arreverderci Toscana!

Things to Remember from Tuscany

2009-07-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

June 19, 2009 11:00P.M.

- Julie having to complete online coursework
-Mosquito wars
-GPS voice
-Best food was at castle
-2A.M. wine chats
-Renaming places we couldn't pronounce
-Hot Nights
-King of the Castle
-Limoncello
-One charger
-Castle Days
-Both Jim/Gordon reading the same book
-Pastry runs
-Cappuccino
-Noot sauce
-To Go Cups

Day Eleven

2009-07-04T17:14:00.001-05:00

June 19, 2009 11:15A.M.

Allison and Bryson opted for a castle day today. G&G and J&J drove off to Lucca as the final jot on our itinerary. Driving without having to coordinate three cars goes much faster.

We find the train station and park. We don’t know any better and enter the city through a set of steps in a tunnel. Not realizing one of the main entrances was right down the road. Oh, well. Looking at a map we realize we have to cut a swarth straight through the city for bike rentals.

Plodding along we pass Piazza di Napoleone and Piazza San Michele and old Roman Forum. Great little city to stroll around in. We choose three neon green and one bright pink bike to use for an hour.

Amazing! Simply amazing way to see a city. It was so fantastic on a flat surface that encompasses the entire city. Feel the breezes blow past your face as you ride through canopies of green. Smell the fresh mown grass and stop at a fountain for a refreshing drink.

After two rotations it was already time to bring them back. Next we find the Roman Amphitheater, a circular grouping of homes. We eat lunch then make our way to Torre Guigni. The one with trees growing on the roof. Spectacular views, again.

It’s about 3:30 now and our stamina is wearing down, so we head back. At the castle Allison relates her day in Montespertoli and an Italian hair salon. Also the fun to be see at the pool.

Dinner was ordered from the restaurant. All of our favorites, ravioli nocce, penne pesto, and grilled sausages. Don’t forget the wine. All four bottles of it. We sat around the table just laughing, sharing, and chatting. Julie and I were up til 2A.M.!

Day Ten

2009-07-04T16:01:00.006-05:00

June 18, 2009 8:37A.M.

Time seems to do funny things in Italy. Days appear to fly by but then it feels like we've been here since 119 A.D. I'm enjoying this trip mostly because it is living up to my expectations and then keeps going. The sky has been blue, the birds singing. The fellow travelers have yet to be obnoxious or whiny or inconsiderate. Who knows, though. In the next two days it may all turn sour like year old milk. Somehow I doubt it though.

Our plans for Pisa yesterday went off with only a few hitches. The accident, horrible car and trailer wreck, that held us up a bit on the highway. Then the tiny spits of rain as we climbed the Leaning Tower. Everything else, perfetto.

We start off with pictures in front of the tower. The quintessential holding it up ones. And the one for school of all the CHES teachers reading a book, travel guides in this case. The new principal asked us to send her a picture of teachers reading. Thought this one was fun.

Our tickets to climb the tower weren't until 2P.M. and it was still only noon. We all broke off but ended up in the same place. At church, if you can believe it. The cathedral was holding mass because it was a holiday in Pisa. Beyond-gorgeous church filled with numerous priests and nuns conducting service.

We met up to have lunch at a pizzaria. Sadly it was already time to say Arriverderci to Vicky and Alan. Watching part of our little clan walk away was like cutting an arm off. Safe flight guys.

But we must plod on. Gordon and I had our tour first and clambered up the surreally tilting stairs. Waving to Bryson and Allison at each tier was fun. Out on top it starts to rain. Here I am on a 14% leaning tower on smoothly worn marble about to get slippery. Yep, I clung to everything I could rather than plummet headlong over the side.

Jim and Julie went up after us, yet we never bumped into each other. They made it to the top. You can tell because here is Jim doing the victory dance.

Julie was eager to see her hometown of Livorno, so we headed off to there. What an interesting drive. Especially past the military base. the GPS took us to the dockyards where cruise ships sail into. Julie recognized wehre her dad used to work and parks she used to play in when she was 8. A trip down memory lane.

At home (ie, castle) we did two loads of laundry and became more intimate with each others things. then we made reservations at Il Foculare.

The restaurant and a gas station seemed to be the biggest part of town. It was a great place. We may not have wanted to sit in il gardino because of the swarms of mosquito. But the fried veggie plate made up for it. I had this amazing house special that was meat and onions cooked in a broth inside of a terra cotta pot for DAYS! Oh, wonderful.

Home for limoncello and bed.

Day Nine

2009-07-01T10:00:00.001-05:00

June 18, 2009 8:14A.M.

Just did a pastry run. It was Allison’s turn and she needed a guide. Good thing I went, lots of cute Italians hanging around.

Yesterday was spent in Florence doing the Rick Steves’s tour. We had downloaded free audioguides of both Uffizi and Accademia. There’s also a Renaissance Walk, but Gordon forgot his IPOD in the car. We had to take some time to go back and get it.

We got to stroll along the Arno up to the Ponte Vecchio. Beautiful ancient bridge overwhelmed with jewelry stores. Strange, but

Uffizi was not to my liking. The grouping of statues lining the halls of the original offices had little explanations and were odd pairings. I’m not big on religious paintings, so we rushed through most of it. The Botticelli’s were fascinating. I loved the da Vinci “The Annunciation” with its perfect converging lines. Moving on.

Piazza Vecchio was great for lunch surrouned by Posidon and Hercules and fake David. In fact I bought an apron with David’s torso and cookies on it, ha!

We meet up with most of the group at 4P.M. outside this graffiti covered plain building that houses the Accademia. Turns out it was a converted nunnery. Since we had to wait 30 more minutes before our entry time Julie made the best suggestion to sit in this shady grassy park and have gelato.

Rick Steves suggested we start with David, but he didn’t prepare us for the tingling sensation you get as you turn the corner and spy the statue at the end of the long hallway lit from above by the domed skylight that seemed made for such an exalted sight. Even though it’s strictly forbidden to take pictures, I snuck a few.

The entire group was meeting back up at the Baptistry doors at 6P.M. We arrive a little early and crowd watch. There were two poorly made up women dressed as white faced nuns who were going around the piazza smooching for money. That seemed to be the only cause for the dreaded pick-pockets or child-throwing gypsies that we saw.

Head home for leftovers and beer and ricotta cake (bless you, Vicky). Alan and Vicky bought me a second David apron as I found them the hat store they’d been searching for all day, Ciao Bella!

Day Eight

2009-07-01T09:43:00.002-05:00

June 16, 2009 7:52A.M.

The hill towns of Tuscany. We hit the two big ones yesterday. Siena and San Gimignano. The shower thing wasn’t all that bad. We left maybe five minutes after our scheduled time slot. For some reason the gps was hell bent on taking us the shortest distance routes, which we quickly discover isn’t the fastest. At all. It took us backways and byways that in Italy translates to switchbacks and round abouts for days.

We had scheduled a 30 minute drive to Siena because it was only 33 km away. It took us an hour and a half. Finally we reached the crayola city and fought for stadium parking. Weird spots that surrounded the perimeter, yet nothing like a parking garage. Gordon dented the bumper pulling into a spot that finished right at the stadium steps. Good thing we paid for full coverage.

A short walk brought us to the Il Campo, the famous fan-like square. We stopped for some antihistamine for Julie’s squito bites that were taking over her elbow. Then to a café called Bar Palio. Funniest little take away cups. They looked ceramic so we kept trying to get the counter guy to understand we wanted to walk around with them. Then we picked them up and “Ooooh,” they’re plastic. Cooling sleeve was built in.

Next we scheduled a time to meet back and split off into fractions for two hours. Gordon and I head right for the Clock Tower. Gluttons for punishment. Only 400 steps today, through the narrowest tightest passageways. It’s a good thing they made us put our bag in a free locker. The view was amazing.
We walked further up to the Siena hill to the Duomo (Doo-min-O). Then back down to meet up for lunch. I got a free taste of the local panaforte. Yum! Everyone else grabbed a gelato (JELL-ah-toe) and we were back into the cars. Can you believe that the heat of the day popped the bumper back out with hardly a noticeable scratch? Yeah!

45 minutes and 9 km later we reached the Renaissance city of San Gimignano. I liked this one better. It didn’t have the same touristy feel. The square was all done up with a MayPole for their festival this coming weekend. Vicky and Alan joined us on the Tower tour and again we got the grand sweeping vistas.

Gordon and I picked up some salami, cheese (formaggio), and tagliaterre pasta for dinner. Jim grabbed some olives and wines. The Coop (say it like chicken coop, NOT co-op, sticking tongue out at Allison) was closed. So when we returned, Vicky and Alan grabbed some salad and another pasta from the bar downstairs. We had ourselves a feast in a very over heated cucina.

After a cooling dip in the pool and some limoncello, we were ready for bed. An hour earlier than usual mind you.

Day Seven

2009-07-01T09:36:00.002-05:00

June 15, 2009 7:26A.M.

It’s early. We’re all trying to figure out shower schedules and being ready to leave at a set time for our first destination as a group: Siena. I’ll let you know how it goes later on.

Yesterday was a do-nothing day that will be forever coined as ‘castle day’ and we wore it well. I already told you how fun trying to cobble breakfast together was, J&J finally woke up right after I stopped the entry yesterday.

It was pool time. Even the simple fact of sitting around a pool chatting within the beautiful grounds of your very own castle, it does something to you. The hours whiled away until about 5P.M. We had a snack and I emailed our city manager in Rome on the reception’s free internet.

Around 7P.M. after a rousing game of Sorry in which Ms. Vicky beat the pants off us all, I drag the victorious V, her new name now, and her royal subject (husband) around for a photo shoot. Then we did a group shoot out on the terrazza.

Dinner started after 8 with remnants of an earlier Baptisemo party still going on around us. It was a bit of a haggle trying to get a chicken or fish option tonight and not just carne (red meat). It was a loss and they brought out a caprese instead.

The meal again was incredible. I didn’t think it would take us three hours like last night, but sure enough it did.

To top our evening off the chef came out and poured all of us a shot of some orangey liqueur that came with a biscotti for dipping. Toscana con Piacere!

Day Six

2009-07-01T09:11:00.002-05:00

June 14, 2009 12:20P.M.

Oh, so much to catch up on! It's been a whirlwind day full of wonderful treats and surprises.

Finally arrived in Firenze and used the gps to locate the Avis rental place. Incredibly nice gentleman helped us get our car and luggage packed away. He also let us leave it there while we toured the city for a few hours.

Meandering our way to the Duomo we happen upon a slice of Fiorentina Life. Church ceremony with folks dressed in period costumes and women in black mantilla. Wonderful.

Turn a different corner and BAM this gorgeous piazza full of incredible architecture. We found the Duomo and Baptistry. OOH and AAH time. Then hop in line for free tour of the Duomo. Thinking about climbing to La Cuppola. We decide however that once we saw the line wrapped around the building Plan B was called for. Thankfully, the second and cheaper option had no line.

After 414 steps (I know, right!) up tight passageways and complaining children we reach the top of the Campignale. Almost same height as the dome. Yay!

We head back for the car and drive the twisty curvy 30 minute road to Castello di Montegufoni.
All I can say is the website did not do this place justice. Absolutely incredible with beautiful sweeping vistas of the Tuscan hills. Yes, I was hopping up and down with glee. Man, did we hit the jackpot!

Gordon and I ran around snapping pictures of everything. The place originally was two palaces and five homes that were later encapsulated into one of the highlights of Florentine culture.
Figure out how to do our laundry, even with the strange coin and ancient key to open the door. So we sat down at the pool for an hour while we wait.

Vicky, Alan, Jim, and Julie arrived around 7P.M. full of stories from their travels. How sucky Paris is in the rain, how horrible flights can go really wrong. We got them settled into their rooms and then made reservations for dinner downstairs at the bar.

At 8P.M. we head down to the Terrazza. Thus begins our 3 hour tour of Italian cuisine. Starting with antipasti of melon, olives, prosciutto, artichokes, and spinach torte. Moving on to prima pasta of penne with tomatoes (delicioso) and a surprise favorite: ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach drenched in a ‘nut sauce’. We had quite the laugh over that as we tried to figure out what the waiter was trying to explain to us. Covered in peanut sauce? Ew. But it was incredible. A white sauce with ground walnuts.

Then came spinach and peas, carne (meat) mixed grill was approaching the busting point. But dolce is always a must. Lemon torte or ricotta cake. Hmm? We finish off with limoncello. By this time? It’s 11P.M.

Alan was walking around and found Allison wandering the parking lot. We had almost given up. Got her and Bryson settled and all crashed by midnight.

The next morning I was up at 6A.M. and couldn’t sleep, so I grab the Nikon and head out for some morning light practice. I even caught the sfumata encasing the Tuscan hills. After an hour I head back to the room and sleep for another two hours.

No breakfast was a real treat, especially no access to cappuccino. Gah! We had quite an adventure buying groceries. No anglais. I ended up with everything I needed though. Who knew facial tissues and jelly would be so hard to describe?

Right now it’s 1P.M. and we are sitting out chatting on the terrazza again. Jim and Julie have been asleep for 13 hours. They’d been up for almost 30 hours. Aaah, blissful castle day.

Day Five continues

2009-07-01T09:09:00.001-05:00

June 13, 2009 9:29A.M.

On the train already past La Spezia and hurdling towards Pisa Centrale. I waved goodbye to the Cinque Terra. Hellacious but memorable.

Day Cinque (pronounced Chink- way)

2009-06-29T14:37:00.002-05:00

June 13, 2009 8:09A.M.

Well, here it is. The end of our first leg of Italy. It came, was grueling in parts, and went. In an hour we'll be on a fast train to Pisa to make our connection to Firenze.

Yesterday was another day of what the guide book promised as an "Easy" hike. I don't who the people are that decide these things, but they need to be shot. Trail No. 9 to Santuario Madonna di Soviore was almost straight uphill. The inclines were rough and the path alternated between uneven pavers on a mule trail to asphalt to rocky crags. Translation: grueling. Never have I sweated so much and had to stop so often to let my heart slow down. The church was interesting, though. The story of the doves revealing the wooden statue buried to protect it from WWII soldiers was intriguing. But too soon we had to replace our packs on our cold sweaty backs and go back down. It went faster buy try telling that to my legs.

Next was a boat ride over to Riomaggiore for some great photo opportunities. Then train it back because the next boat wouldn't be for two more hours. It's about 5P.M. Time for nibbles and then some tennis on tv, in German.

Earlier we tried getting money from the ATM but it kept saying our account wasn't available. EEK! We had to wait the our and a half for the bankers to return from lunch so we could get some money out. Thankfully we did this today instead of waiting til Saturday. Gordon's tip to Travel in Italy #4 (#1 one easily carried backpack, #2 clips for everything, #3 be early).

Dinner was decided on quickly once we noticed many restaurant tables had reservation placards up. It was the Belvedere for our last night. The food was very goo. Only two things spoiled it. A gaggle of drunk trust fund babies and a smoker who insisted on smoking through the entire meal.

Day Four

2009-06-29T14:29:00.004-05:00

June 12, 2009 8:54A.M.

Oy, muscle ache is not fun on vacation. Gordon keeps feeding me bananas, something about potassium being good way to ward off crampings. I keep pushing for some beach time. Alas, no acquiescence (sp?). We found that the ferry does indeed stop at Riomaggiore. We train it over to Corniglia to continue the rest of Trail No. 2. Of course it was pretty smooth the whole way. A bit of up and down in Manarola. We didn't stay long there. Got right onto the Via Dell'Amore. Nice and smooth and blissfully SHORT walk. Think of the villagers voluntarily carving this out with picks and buckets. The Italians love their graffiti though. We found a cute Lover's Bench surrounded by tons of locks of love.

We meander through Rimaggiore finally finding the ferry ticket office at the bottom of these long steps. Only to discover the ferry had been cancelled due to rough seas. Of course they couldn't have put a notice at the TOP of the stairs, could they?

Nap upon return. Then out to explore the more resort part of Monterosso. Dinner was decided at Ely. Best food so far in Italy. Once it cooled enough not to scald my face. Ask to see the mark.

Day Three

2009-06-29T14:20:00.004-05:00

June 11, 2009 9:35 A.M.

I am in pain. Real physical ouches. We came to the Cinque Terra to hike. Little did we know what were in for. Apparently they've allowed mentally unstable people assess their ease of trail ratings. Two hour long paths, paths as wide as a ruler is long, rocks jutting up from the ground every which way, and stairs. Stairs for days. We shouldn't have purchased a treadmill in prepartion for this trip. A rugged stair climber would have been more beneficial. It was like beating your calves with bricks on purpose. Just when you seriously consider falling flat on your face, you turn around to see a poddle coming up the path behind you. What a blow to the machismo! We walked this torture for six hours on only two of the paths. From Monterosso to Vernazza, stopping for lunch and water refills. Then on to Corniglia. Of course we didn't know the ferry didn't stop in this city (of course it doesn't). We see signs for Marina and walk down even more hellacious stairs only to witness the ferry sail right past.

Eventually arrive back at the top of the stairs and wait patiently for the Ecobus to take us back to our apartment and collapse. Guess what? It doesn't go to Monterosso. The train station lies at the bottom of... you guessed correct... stairs. 365 of them. One. For. Every. Day. Of. The. Year. The train ride? Yeah, it takes ten minutes. Sigh.

Dinner was at La Bella Anchor du Tortuga under the Torre Aurora watch tower. Dinner was better tonight and we even tried anchovies, which the area is known for. Desserts on the menu are not very eclectic. Ice cream or sorbet. So we found the only open gelataria. Sorry, no limoncello tonight.

Day Due (two)

2009-06-29T13:59:00.003-05:00

June 10, 2009 9:57A.M.

It seems I lost an entire day somewhere while flying.

Breakfast at the Albergo Marina, Via Buranco, Monterosso al Mare, Cinque Terra, Italy. Our first cappucchinos with such thick tasty foam. Eggs, hard boiled, have a very different strange orangey colored yolk. Animal cracker cereal. Now we're waiting for our cheesy bacon omelets. More fresh juice for you?

Last night was an interesting experience. We finally arrived in the country of Italy 23 hours after leaving the house. Got settled then went and wandered all over the city. It was fun watching Gordon with his own camera. He took such different shots than I did. At 8:30 P.M. we found this place called Ciak that had out a beautiful display of fresh seafood. Plus it had a cute waiter in a sailor outfit. We sat at a buffet style table with a couple from Seattle and an English gentleman (Clive Evans) who is currently living near Nice. He is the chosen photographer for the Siena Palio events. Cool! Once the wine took hold the conversations just opened right up. There was politics and pesto, palios and history.

My dinner was incredibly gross. BBQ grilled mixed seafood. It said grilled fish on the menu, so I was totally expecting some bream, some salmon maybe. Oh no. Prawns, shrimp and squid with ink sacs included! Uck. At least the pesto gnocchi was heavenly. We finished with our first attempt at limoncellos and tiramisu gelato. NOW I love Italy.

Toscana con Piacere! Day One

2009-06-29T13:49:00.002-05:00

June 8, 2009 8:40 P.M.

I am currentl flying over Price Edward Island and watching "New In Town" as I jet towards Italy.

Could life GET any better?

New in Town is this great movie with Renee Zellwegger. The minute it started with a table of women scrapbooking I knew I was in love. I teared up when Blanche gave Lucy her first album, ya know?

Sorry for the seque, I've been on this flight for three hours, plus the one hour they kept us sitting on the runway. Sitting right next to the only infants on the entire flight. There are still six more hours left. Thankfully they have Bejewled for FREE!

Somewhere ahead this vast ocean lies a city I've only ever heard about. One that holds mysteries and adventures wrapped with an ancient frame. I can't wait to touch walls that hold the stories of emperors and queens, gladiators and farmers. Walls that will still be strong long after I invade.

Rome, the very word thrills me to the very fingertips (thanks Anne Shirley). All of those movies planting visions in my head. I am finally coming to visit. Will I stay? Who knows, but I will finally experience you for myself. ROME.

No April Fool's!!

2009-04-01T18:21:00.001-05:00

Ooooh one more BIG thing...Check it out!Lucy is giving away 5 spots to the Scrap Etc event!{NO April fools!}This is what her email said:We are giving away FIVE spaces to the Scrap ETC event!And we have FIVE ways you can win:1. Post a comment on the blog.2. Tell your friends to come and post a comment, and if they do, tell us that they referred you! Both of you will get a chance!3. Post this contest on your blog---and post a link in our comments!4. Post a link in the comments to anywhere else online that you have posted about this!5. Post it on your facebook or twitter status---and let us know that you did!We will draw the names Thursday morning,April 2nd!Start posting NOW!Good luck!

Time to Compare

2008-11-27T10:19:00.005-05:00

Thought it would be interesting to put the Before and After shots in one place.

Shower:

Garden Tub:

Vanity:

Day Eleven - - Done???

2008-11-27T09:59:00.003-05:00

Oh joy!~ Oh tiny kittens and puppies! Oh unexpected bonus checks!! The day is here. At last a project started way back in December of 2007 has come to it's 'almost' completion.

It's the first day of my Thanksgiving Break and I got to sit around waiting for contractors. YAY!! The plumber was to be out between 9 and 10. He showed up after 11. Something about car trouble. He was here to install the shower heads, the faucets, and the superflush toilet. I asked him to start with the shower because the company who put the shower glass walls together were coming out soon. He got right to work.

The glass guy was to be here between 11 and 1. He showed up after 12. He also got right down to business.

It was a long day waiting around for them to finish. But finally around 4 our project director Mike and his boss came by to take a look at the final project. The boss did a double take when he saw our bathroom. He told us it was definitely not the typical beige tile and white appliance look. In his opinion it was absolutely gorgeous. Mike too was pleased with how it turned out. He does a lot of $100,000 bathrooms with marble going all the way to the ceiling. It gets kind of boring to him. But then he comes across our design (much less than $100K) and he can't compare it. Warms the heart, doesn't it?? Or are they just trying to make us feel great about our finished project? Either way, I still love my bathroom.

The shower heads are in. Yep, that is plural! There's the big overhead main piece, and then four separate wall jets. Each one is adjustable. Ooooooooh!

The faucets tooks some finagling because of the vessel bowl placement and then the La Toscana faucets needed so much distance from the wall. At last it was all in place and we got to flush the toilet for the first time. Let me tell you: It SUCKS! Superflush it is.

Only one problem we noticed so far. The drain installed in the vessel bowls sit above the base so water stands there. We might have to get the holes enlarged so that the drain sits down into the bowl.

From here on out we need Doug to come back out and grout underneath the shower heads because they don't sit flush against the wall like they should. Hmm, didn't think of that while installing the pebbles. Our mirrors are being built by Home Depot and should be done sometime next week. We have some more painting to be done. We already did a primer base of a medium gray color. I thought that would be too dark, but everything is looking really great together.

Day Ten - - Details

2008-11-27T09:58:00.004-05:00

Doug came out just for a few hours today. He placed the cabinets against the wall and caulked around them. He set the tub seam and then filled it with water so that it would settle with the correct weight. Then he left. We'll see him again next week.

Day Nine - - Lighting In

2008-11-27T09:38:00.003-05:00

Not much going on for this Monday. The electrician came out and installed the new can lights. You can see three of them in the picture below. There's another one inside the shower stall.

Doug had to wait utnil all of that was done before he could get to work on finishing the floor and wall grouting. He worked diligently until 6 P.M. to finish it all up today.

Day Eight - - Grout

2008-11-20T19:41:00.003-05:00

Here you can see Doug sealing the slate flooring. Unfortunately the stuff dries and the floor will not always retain this huge glossy shine.
I love the beautiful color variations of this floor. Doug did a fantastic job of arranging the different tile patterns across the room.

The shower stall is completely grouted. I can just imagine the amount of time he had to work with this. He had to lay down the grout and then wipe off each individual stone across the entire wall and floor. GAH! No thank you.
He tells us that we can use a high gloss sealant on these pebbles to make them shine. YAY! I like that idea because I think the grout kind of dumbs down the effect of the pebbles.

A close up of the wall with the grouting all done.

Day Seven - - Bullnose

2008-11-20T19:36:00.002-05:00

No, I am not upset and spouting foul names about the tile guy or something.
Bullnose is a new term in my vocabulary (extensive? not so much). It is when the edges of a tile are rounded off for a curved edge instead of the flat sharp edge tile comes with.
It makes a wonderful transition up against a wall.

Or in this case used as a transition from the carpet of the bedroom over the threshold into the bathroom.

Here you can see the bullnose being used as the edges of the tub surround.

Day Six - - Floors Down

2008-11-18T19:26:00.007-05:00

Another day dawns bright and early. Stumble out of bed to move the Jeep so that Doug can park there and use the garage. Just a side note? It's FREEZING outside!

Doug arrives right at 7:30 A.M. and gets to work.

I get to spend the day delivering the dog to the vet to have his back end, umm, well emptied. Don't ask. Then I hauled my cookies all the way over to the Mall to shop for an AC adaptor for a new IPOD dock. All that work and it doesn't even work.

Had to be home before noon so that the roof guy, Justin, could come and do his inspection. To give you an idea at how shoddy our roofers originally built our home, here is one picture Justin took today. EGAD!

By 5:30 P.M. Doug finishes up with the rest of the wall and tub surround. And he got started on the slate flooring by putting down this gray crack suppressor. Yay! Hopefully these tiles won't crack and form a line across the room.

Here are the three built in shelves for the shower stall.

What do you think so far?

Day Five - - Walls Up

2008-11-17T18:39:00.002-05:00

It was a tough three days to get through. I got so excited watching all of the changes develop last week. Waiting those three days with nothing happening was rough on the anticipation scale.

Well, was I in for a surprise today. Doug returned bright and early (7:30 A.M.). So on a day off I can't even sleep in. Little price for such a great job. He worked all day to get the shower stall walls up. Poor guy had to pick through the pebble sheets to find ones that didn't have big have stones on it.

He got that all up by around 2 and then started in on the RainForest Green marble tile. This is going to run up along the walls around the entire room. He was cutting and hanging that until 5:30. Amazing how much he can get done in such a short time. The one time I did a tile floor it was an agonizing three days for just a straightforward rectangular room.

I digress. Doug will be back tomorrow to do the rest of the rainforest. Then maybe start on the slate??

Master Bath - - Day Four

2008-11-13T18:34:00.007-05:00

Cabinets have arrived. We saw this funky design in a showroom and really liked its creative twist on the doors and shelving. So we asked the fine folk at Home Depot if they could possibly create something similar? The answer..."Yes, of course. What kind of wood would you like?" I love Home Depot.

The doors are in a jigsaw cut design so that they are the old boring straight cut doors. There are two shelves inside that roll out on sliders. The top one is so cool because it has an insert cut out of it to make way for the piping underneath the sink. Clever use of space, I say.

I am so enamored with the oak hardwood finish of these that I would glady marry both of these vanities.

Want to see my loves? Since you asked, Okay:

We're also starting to see the pebble trims coming. There will be a two inch strip across the room of this pebble.

Remember the TileGuy, Doug? Well, he attempted to put up the first sheet of river rock for the shower walls. Too bad the tile mud couldn't hold up the weight. It slid right down the wall. Lovely. He has to come back with something stronger on Monday.

Master Bath - - Day Three

2008-11-12T21:03:00.004-05:00

Huge difference coming home today! Insulation replace, walls were up, some sort of plastic sheeting to prevent leakage, and then black sealant. Ooh, big diff??

The shower floor is in!! Never mind the extra foot of space added on the front and back areas from the original. Can you see the polished river rock? Can you see the texture of each individual stone adding to the overall earthy effect? Can you imagine the sensation of soft smoothly rounded rocks gently massaging the undersoles? Yeah? Yeah. I know. I can't wait, either!

Also, more materials were delivered today. We have special ordered two vessel bowls for our vanities.

We chose this style because of its natural material exterior. The green granite inner material goes great with the rainforest marble.

This is one of the vessels.

and here's the second one. Sigh. I can hear your brain from here. I totally agree with you. It looks like a bedpan, right? Alas, we can only return the vessel if it is defective. Please find something defective with this one, or I am going to be washing my face in a urinal shaped sink. Any help is appreciated! Thanks.

Master Bath - - Day Two

2008-11-11T19:14:00.002-05:00

There wasn't much going on when I arrived home today. A lot of discussion about placement for the decorative Rain Forest Tile. Where and how to place a strip of flat tile so that the glass shower doors could be installed. Also going through the Mongolian Spring slate tile and picking out color juxtapositions. Fun times.

Master Bath - - Day One

2008-11-11T18:50:00.005-05:00

Original Designs:
Vanity

Garden Tub

Shower Stall

The day has indeed finally arrived. After almost an entire year of our master bathroom being out of commission, we are ready to begin remodeling. The more I live in my current home, the more I hate those builders who thought they could get away with cutting corners. Every day something new pops up (literally sometimes) and it makes me wonder how the house ever passed inspection. ~sigh~

We stopped using the master shower right after returning from Christmas with the family around December 27th. We had noticed caulking coming unseated and blackish mold growing along the seams. A decision to let the tile wall in the shower dry out has now become a ten month ordeal that is ending today!

Home Depot, especially Chris, has worked hard with us to make our vision become a reality. If things work out according to plan y'all may never see me again because I won't be leaving my bathroom, ever! You'll see what I am talking about as I update the progress, so keep an eye out for new posts.

Today I came home from work and they had completed all of the demolition of the old bathroom. The yucky cracked tile floor is gone. The oversized double vanity and garish mirror have disappeared. The shower stall has been completely ripped out and hauled away. Leaving a new kind of mess in its place. But with a little imagination I can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Doug, the Tile Guy as he is to be forever known, says that he should be out of here by next Friday. Hmm, I am hoping this project does NOT turn into a scene from the old Tom Hanks Film, The Money Pit. The one where the builders kept insisting it would only take two weeks and kept saying it for the next two years. Please please please don't be that way!

Here's a shot of the shower head placement. Yes, you counted correctly. There are FOUR side nozzles being installed. Plus a rainshower head soon to be arriving!

Here's a shot of what was lurking behind the moldy corroding tile wall. Blackish insulation and badly placed boards. Thankfully this isn't as bad as could be inspected. No Black Mold, yippee!

Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) Ghost Hunt #2

2008-08-26T21:06:00.005-05:00

You may recall back in September of last year I disappeared into an abandoned mental institution with my sister and friends. Don't worry, we made it back out again.

WELL, it's that time again!

Yep, I am going on another ghost hunt with my family. This time however they have turned what I originally thought of as a 'rocking fun time' to a full out professional touring group. The group is called SoulFan Paranormal (SFP) and they conduct equipment heavy searches through local institutions around the Boston area.

The group decided to travel towards Philadelphia, PA this time, though. And I will be joining them, hurrah! We will be going on a day tour with all the other 'muggles' (non ghost hunting folk). Then returning later that night to have the entire place to ourselves.

My sister is leading the investigation this time and she has already mapped out team members and camera locations throughout the site. She put me on her team because we always have a good time together (read as "laugh our asses off").

I can't wait to see this place. From the Ghost Hunters episode, I have gathered it is WICKED huge. Should be a fun time.

Stay tuned for tons of pictures from this trip. Especially since I have my Nikon 50mm f1.8 D lens in my hot little hands. It should be fantastic for all of those low light situations.

Wish me luck and pray for a safe return, yeah?

RING-WORM

2008-08-26T20:58:00.003-05:00

I am separating this word, because that's how YUCKY it feels to have this thing. Last week one of my little darlin's comes to me and says, "Mr. F, look at what we have to go to the doctor's for tonight!" in such an eager voice I had to look to build up self-esteem when I can, right?

So stay with me and imagine my recoil of horror when I notice the "Fungus-Amongus". Sent him immediately to the nurse. She confirmed it.

I didn't think anything more about it until today. I was in the midst of my lazy period and hadn't shaved in awhile. It got itchy so I shaved it clean before leaving for school. I was washing my hands after lunch and happened to look in the mirror (can't have lasagna in my teeth, can I?).

This is the moment when I recognize what that itchy area on my face actually was. GAAAAAAAH!

And with me flying out to Philly to conduct another ghost hunt with my family (more about that in next post) on Friday.

I feel yucky.

This Can't Be Happening

2008-08-17T17:40:00.002-05:00

Leave it up to stupid executive board members to ruin my day. Apparently the WB has decided to postpone the release of Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince an entire EIGHT months after its widely posted date of Nov 21, 2008.

After the final book came out and I've read it through (twice), I had nothing left to keep the fun alive for me except looking forward to the release of Movie 6.

Now that is taken away. BOO HOO!

Do you want to know WHY they decided to do this to million of fans? Because they want more money! UGH. The Writer's Strike strikes again. Due to those long and arduous months of no tv to speak of the landscape of movie releases has become barren too. WB doesn't have any huge summer blockbuster to compare it's 2009 fiscal year to its amazing summer of 2008. Think Batman.

Because they want to balance the books, they are stripping us Muggles of our shining light at the end of the tunnel. Harry and Ginny won't be getting together until July 18 of 2009!

I am sad.

Life Descends Again

2008-08-03T21:20:00.002-05:00

After many weeks of dreading it, the time has come. Only one more sleep and then I have to go back to work. It's going to be so crazy tomorrow morning. We haven't been allowed into our classrooms since May 24th since they are retrofitting the air conditioning. All of the teachers had to box up their stuff so it wouldn't get too dusty from all the ceiling work.
Joy Joy.
Oh, add on the entertaining fact that I am going to be grade chair this year. Which means I actually have to call meetings and tell 12 people what to do. This should be fun.
Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Why So Serious? Dark Knight

2008-07-27T21:21:00.002-05:00

I have finally seen a movie that places hand in hand the thrill of car chases, loud guns, and great special effects with that of a finely tuned script. Imagine that! Usually summer blockbusters are seriously lacking in anything resembling a plot line. It was good to sit enthralled in a movie theater again.

Heath Ledger absolutely walked away with this entire movie in a tightly clad black glove. What an incredible character, so deeply deeply wrong on many levels. The Joker is an instant classic villain not to be topped for some time to come. What a sad thought it is that we won't be able to enjoy an encore performance due to the quick demise of Heath Ledger. He'll be missed for his talent.

My First Photo Shoot

2008-07-27T21:04:00.003-05:00

Official one that is. A photo shoot I choose the location, secured a model and asked her to wear her favorite color, prepared some possible poses and props, and brought my equipment with me.

Christine is such an awesome friend that she didn't hesitate at all when I brought up the idea of a possible shoot. If anything she thought it would be fun. (YAY!)

We went over to the Forum in Norcross for lunch of sushi and pad thai and then I showered her with gifts. I found her favorite flowers (gerber daisies) in her favorite color (orange). I had her pick out her favorite classic novel to peruse. And I bought a French style cup and saucer for one of my poses. She was happy with everything I had in mind.

I set up in this little area outside the Williamas Sonoma store that looks like a French bistro with tables and such. I had my tripod set up and used both lenses to get some different angles. I also brought along my handy dandy exposure rulers straight from my OHShoot! Photography class with Candice Stringham on the JessicaSprague.com site. That way I can play around with the aperature for some more creative shots.

We were going along just fine, getting some fun poses. I was so excited that I forgot to keep checking the viewscreen. I messed up all of the photos by the fountain. Too bad, though. They would have been great.

Here are three good shots that I managed to get:

that was all until the SECURITY descends upon us! Apparently someone called our 'suspicious activities' in. So the golfcarts came racing to curtail our evil doings.

I was almost done with my ideas, so I was all "Okay, we're leaving. Thank you kindly."

Christine was ready and raring for a fight! But she managed to hold it in and we packed up. Sigh. It would have been a perfect day had we not been thrown out.

After I got home I did some googling for 'photography laws' and found a site that stated we had every right to take photos since we were on 'public access areas'. Not quite sure what I would have done with this information, but it will be good to have under my belt for next time.

Otherwise I will miss more shots like this:

Trip of a Lifetime

2008-07-15T15:56:00.008-05:00

I went to Hawaii. I accomplished a lot on this trip. Did things I never thought I would do. Had the best time. In short I conquered Air, Land, and Sea all in twelve days.

There's nothing like plunging into the blue depths and coming face to face with a 20 foot tiger shark, only a piece of plexiglass separating you two.

Or walking up to watch the earth recreate itself not 600 feet away from you. Watching lava spew out into the ocean and admire the plumes of smoke as it rises into the sky.

Or taking the controls of a motorized hang glider as you soar peacefully over the earth.

How will I ever top this adventure? Well, it will sure be fun to try!

Here are some shots I managed to get while on the islands:

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-06-20T21:28:00.004-05:00

Gordon and I did something completely spontaneous tonight. He was able to come home early from work due to summer hours. He brought lunch home but we didn't get to eat it until about 2 P.M. With us eating so late, when it came to dinner time neither one of us was too hungry.

So I suggested we feed the dogs, throw them out, and head over to the theater to eat popcorn and watch Indiana Jones. His response? When's it playing?

YAY!

There weren't too many folks out watching movies tonight so I got to stretch out across several seats. It was great. The movie starts off a little slow. The real action takes a bit to get warmed up. Once it does, though, Watch Out!

The plot was sort of predictable, but I found that to be the endearing part. It was like I knew the characters and how they would react. This made the movie more enjoyable because it was like watching old friends. Karen Allen had a much more interactive role in this one. Loved that smile she had on every time she got the better of the bad Russians.

Even Cate Blanchette's goofy accent didn't deter from the movie. I do think she got what she deserved though. Ask and she shall receive, eh? hee hee

Overall, I loved the movie and thought it was a lot of fun for a Friday night.

Friends who Lunch

2008-06-20T21:11:00.003-05:00

I had a really awesome lunch yesterday with my friend, Krisy. She is watching my dogs while I am off to Hawaii. I had to give her the keys, so she suggested we meet for lunch. She had the perfect place in mind. It was in the downtown square. A great restaurant called McRary's Tavern. The best part was to be that we could eat lunch up on the roof. It was a perfect day for it too. The temperature was excellent and the sky was bright blue. Unfortunately we weren't the only ones to have this idea. The roof was packed when we arrived at 12:05. We were first told the wait would only be fifteen minutes so we sat on a bench under a shade tree. We were chatting away like magpies when the hostess came out and told us the wait would actually be more like an hour. WHAT? Krisy, with her amazing brain, suggested that we eat lunch inside and then after the lunch rush passes through that we go upstairs and have a drink. I mean we did come all that way just to sit out on the roof. That's just what we did. The menu was really interesting with an appetizer of gorgonzola potato chips with bacon and tomatoes. YUM! I also ordered the smoked salmon with roasted pepper panini. Krisy had her favorite portabello sandwich.

It was nice to see the downtown area so active. Reminds me of something Gordon said. He was talking about how the gas prices are going to start changing the way people do things like travel and entertain themselves. The idea of a central area where people will congregate, like a downtown, will probably start picking up. It might not all be bad if that happens. It might invigorate the 'small town' feel again. People would get to know and interact with their neighbors again. What's wrong with that?

Anyway, I digress. We finished our lunch and headed up the long twisting flight of stairs to the rooftop patio. Awesome view of the courthouse and churches. I got some great shots. Here's one of Krisy enjoying the day:

I will probably be going back to that restaurant soon!

Sprague Day - Day 4

2008-06-08T17:58:00.004-05:00

Album track time! Got out of bed when the alarm went off at 8, instead of the regular 6:30. Goes to show you how intensive this event has been. I’m sleeping better now too. I don’t think any of the excitement has worn off, maybe it’s just that I am here in the thick of it all. I don’t have my mind wandering off on all the possibilities. I already have stuff to think about.

We got to the room with ten minutes to spare. New record for us. But then we blew it. Dropped off our stuff, set up the computer and then gave Jessica her apple for teacher. Which in this case translates into a box of Jelly Bellies (I made sure there was buttered popcorn in it!). Then we ran to Starbucks. Class had already started when we returned, but it was just passing out the dvd’s for class. Jared had burned some and Jessica had burned some. There were tiny differences to go over before we could begin.

Jessica got us started on the first project. The second page of the book used just one large photo of us. That was easier to show how to work with than the Title Page, so we began there. Good thinking. There were four TA’s ready to wander the room and help out at a moment’s notice. And work they did! Folks had so many questions at the beginning. This started to peter out as we progressed though. Once you do the steps a few times, it becomes second nature. Those that weren’t familiar with the basics for Photoshop were becoming much more comfortable by the second hour.

The papers from KPertiet’s Botanical line and all of the rest that were included with the kit were so gorgeous. The sketches that Jessica produced for the templates were beautiful. I can already tell when I print out this book, it is going to be AAAAWWWW-some!

People were plugging along and we barely noticed the time flying away from us. It’s so easy to lose yourself in selecting papers to use for the template, rearranging elements, typing the journaling, and playing that time goes bye-bye pretty fast. As I worked through the pages I started to realize a boo-boo, though. Jessica probably mentioned this. I was in the zone and might have missed it. It dawned on me that two pages next to each other would open up in a book format. Therefore I had to make sure that the pages flow together. I had to go back and tweak a few paper choices or colors to coordinate facing pages. But that was easy to do.

I didn’t get much accomplished during the morning half because I was paying attention to what everyone was doing. I tried helping out with questions and stuff, but the TA’s were pretty efficient. Oooh, I met Kathryn Estry (nee Mhire) from GottaPixel.net! I had no idea she was going to be there, so it took me a moment to place her. Once I figured it out it was like talking to an old buddy. I kinda listened in on her advice to the other students. Of course, she’s an old pro with Elements and gave great technical and design advice! Hi Kathryn!!

Lunch came, but I didn’t want to stop working. Besides lunch was a repeat of the Thursday with the ham and cheese croissant. They changed out the cookies for a brownie. I had such high hopes for that brownie with its thick layer of chocolate icing. So sad that it wasn’t up to par. I quickly ate and got right back to my station. I was really pumping them out now. As you become more familiar with the paper choices, it’s easier to plan them out. At this time I was coming across the Two-fers. Those pages where the layout spread out over two pages. It was a bit to work with at first. But I figured out that if you had both open at the same time it was easier. This way you could drag a paper onto the first side and then drag it again to the second. Much easier to coordinate this way.

Can you believe that the time started going by even quicker after lunch? It was crazy, but I had only done about 8 pages by then. Only three hours left. Only an hour and a half. Only an hour. AAAAHHH. I got 11 pages done by the time class was officially over. Jessica said that we could stay as long as we wanted. Meg and I took her up on that one!

Jessica ended the day with a speech that touched us all. She related how empowering we were for her. Sharing our lives and our journeys with her gives her strength. It was a tearful time for many. We thanked her with our applause and shouts of “We love you!” Oh, that last one might only have been from me. I couldn’t tell. HA!

It’s 5:30 and our stomachs are rumbling. Wolfing down half the lunch probably wasn’t a good idea. We went upstairs to drop off our packs and talk about dinner. Meg mentioned that she saw this Asian noodle shop near the Godiva kiosk. I’m all about that! This turned out to be the perfect choice. The atmosphere of the restaurant was so calming and serene with its soft music in the background and its décor of cherry blossom branches hanging from the ceiling. What a great change from the hustle and bustle of the mall experience. There wasn’t any loud blaring music where you couldn’t hear the person in front of you. Excellent way to decompress after three days of frenetic scrapbooking!

For some reason, Meg and I thought that commencement started at 7 and ran to 8. So we took our time over the Shu-Mai and Pad Thai. When we finally arrived in the ballroom the group was watching the slideshow. We stood in the back with Michelle Van Etten and said goodbye to her because she was flying off to teach in Dallas. It was fun to see the pictures that Paolo took throughout the event. Meg and I were in several so it was fun. Once it was over we rushed to find a table somewhere near a plug so we could continue working on our albums. When the slideshow was over they called out the album tracks and had us throw our graduation caps in the air. Then we could pick up our diplomas. Whoo HOO!

Meg and I looked at each other and realized that we had made a mistake. We asked around and commencement had begun at 6. Ooops. The raffle was already over but neither of our names were called. I don’t feel too bad because I really enjoyed dinner so much.

I finally had a moment to finish yesterday’s blog and got that posted. Sorry for the long delay. Meg and I sat working on our pages. I managed to get 15 of them (out of 22) fully completed and organized. I am thinking I will work on a few more during the plane ride. I had called up in the room for Super Shuttle and had to reserve a 7:50 AM pickup time. So Meg and I called it a night around 10:30. With a brief stop to talk to Josiane (Evolution with Ali) and Carol (Remember with Margie) about their beautiful albums. Josiane did a great take on Ali’s idea. She was going to turn it into a travel album. The gal sitting at their table (I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name!) did the same thing. She wanted to give it to her husband for Father’s Day, so she was really cranking to get it done. It was gorgeous. All about Rome.

Our experience with CKU has come to a close. There is still the airport shuffle tomorrow, but the interaction and constant scrapping has finished. It is sad and exciting all rolled into one big package. I feel like I’ve been away long enough to feel like a vacation, but it all went by so lightning quick. Meg and I discussed if we would return to do another CKU. We’ve come to the decision that we’d probably do the CPR photography retreat before another CKU.

We also are in agreement that CKU should design an entire event around a digital frame of mind. Meg mentioned this to Annette – a CKU organizer- as we were picking up our diplomas. Annette got this big mischievous grin on her face and said, “Be Patient. You might be surprised soon.” We immediately asked, “How patient?” Her response was to be very patient. So we’re thinking something is coming down the pike next year. Maybe?? Could be??

Whichever, I am there!

Here's Meg trying to get her suitcase closed after all the goodies!

Random Acts

2008-06-07T20:32:00.003-05:00

During the Friday Night Crop Meg and I were just sitting there cutting and pasting. Definitely not causing any problems. Minding our own business in fact. When Ali Edwards walks by, followed by the other instructors. At the very end of the line is Jessica Sprague happy as can be. She had just come back from shopping and wanted to share her wares. Who does she stop and talk to like old pals? US!!!

She was sharing this great breezy shirt she had bought for Jared because Raleigh is experiencing a record heat wave right now. She also told us this funny story of how her hubby so subtly let her know that he was indeed finished with his ‘plaid’ phase.

Next she pulls out a beautiful boxed set of cards from Papyrus. They have this gorgeous blend of turquoise and orange colors. It had an Asian garden feel with cherry blossoms and peacocks. Real pretty. Out of nowhere she says, “Would you guys like one?” Jessica Sprague then proceeds to write out a personal note. One for Meg and one for me.

This is not even the amazing part. Do you understand how absolutely thrilling it was to have my personal hero walk right up to me and start a normal every day conversation? It is as if Lance Armstrong pulls up alongside you on your 12 speed and asks if you want a swig from his Gatorade.

Jessica provides inspiration on a daily basis. And she loves it! Reaching out and being there to help others find their way. There’s not enough of this going on. Plus she has such a fun and creative outlook on life. I like that about her.

I’m going to stop the gooey-ness here. I just wanted y’all to know how special someone made me feel today.

Class Blocks

2008-06-07T20:27:00.002-05:00

I am so behind schedule right now. Yesterday was a busy day, but it went by really quickly. At this very moment I am sitting here listening to Jessica Sprague explain how to use brushes to create your own embellishments. The entire class is alive with noise as people’s heads explode with such an AWESOME idea. But I digress, this isn’t what I am supposed to be telling you about.

Day three was our Class Blocks. Four different classes set for an hour and a half each were scheduled throughout the day with an hour in between for lunch. Meg and I were in class block A. Again you were able to select the blocks that you wanted. This way you could make sure that you sit with your friends all day.

The first class was with Tim Holtz. Can anyone say, “Whoo HOO”? This was the class I am most excited about. He is pure technique and working with really cool tools. I will not bore you with an explanation of every tool again. But I do have to say I was extremely glad that I didn’t go ahead and buy all of the implements I shared yesterday. Tim surprised us at the end of class. Shhh! The class was really fun and lively. It was a project I would never have chosen to make simply because it is more home décor and not for a scrapbook. I do like how it turned out.

Our next class was in a FREEZING classroom. Little Yellow Bicycle and their gorgeous Vita Bella line paired up to create an acrylic album. I am using it for my brand new niece’s album. The foiling on here is so eye catching, I just love it. Meg and I were going like gang busters to finish this project. We managed to get close to finishing.

Then it was lunch time. Today was a chicken salad and sun dried tomato sandwich wrapped in a spinach tortilla. I had to stand up and dance around while I ate in order to keep my fingers warmed up. Otherwise they would be numb from the cold!

After lunch, I ran by Jessica’s class with a little “Pick Me Up” to see if she needed any teacher’s assistants. She was fine, so Meg and went and found a table for the Piggie Tales Cutie Pie slide book. These albums with sliding reveal windows is a cute idea if you are thinking an ABC book for kids. I liked the train set she had for us to look at.

Finally, we were back in the frozen tundra area for our last class. Michelle Van Etten was teaching us how to create these graduated frames. She had some delivery issues and only got half of the materials she needed for the complete class. So she set us a challenge. What could we come up with using these two papers, flowers, and some bling. Go Nuts Time. People were folding, ripping, cutting, painting, and just plain creating with what they had. There were dragonflies and intricately cut out swirl patterns. It was an interesting class. Meg was not pleased with the orange and blue combos (it seemed that orange just haunted her the entire weekend). But she got really creative and figured out so many different ways to make it work for her.

Today’s pace was much easier on us. We didn’t sit in one spot for very long and the movement helped keep our brains awake. I didn’t feel exhausted at the end of the day like I had yesterday. We were going to meet up with the Yahoo group at Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It was so fun to sit Rose and Nancy and Wanda, the Katy gals Kate and Jane??? , Leslie and Lynn. The restaurant was super busy and we were on a tight schedule. Apparently Margie Romney-Aslett was to do something special for us tonight. We hog tied our waiter and made him give us our checks as soon as dinner came over. It was a good thing that I found out only today that Tim Holtz’s assistant, Mario, got sick at this restaurant on Wednesday. None of us got sick, thanks be.

We rushed back to the room to pick up cameras and cropping supplies because we had two more bonus classes tonight, plus a talk with Cropper Hopper people. The night started with a ton of free product handed out at the door. Do you know I even got a free mini tote caddy. It’s pink, but I love it! The cropper hopper folks were upbeat and loved to give away stuff.

After an hour of that, we were treated to Micaela Zoeller showing us the ways through this cute month-by-month coaster book. It was strange being back into paper scrapping. I felt the urge to spread! Don’t ask me why. Picture a whole table of similar minded people and you got our group last night. Product and trimmers and little bits of scrap everywhere!

The last workshop was run by the Rusty Pickle people. They were making a Pirate page from their Captain Jack line. Lots of cutting, that one.

Around 11 o’clock, we came to a good stopping point. So Meg had a great idea. We knew that our album track tomorrow would probably not be product heavy (Hey, it’s DIIGI, no mess!!!). If we packed tonight we could relax on Saturday. We spent an hour going through all of the tools, stickers, paper, brads, metal, ribbon, stamps, books and etc. Yes, an hour. I had to organize it all into piles, figure a way to pack to within an inch of my life and then see if it all worked. On a good note, it did. I won’t have to leave anything behind like a sad lost sock. Bed was calling by 12:30. I left Meg up to read and I passed out!

Dear Mr. Anonymous,

This is a message from your wife. She says she'll be home tomorrow. Until then make sure you keep your feet clean!

Day Two

2008-06-06T08:47:00.005-05:00

A Full Day of CKU!!

Apparently yesterday was only a trial run for a day at CKU. Today was the first full round of classes and events and crops and pictures and goodies and and and. I can see y’all now covering up your eyes so you don’t have to read any more! But I am going to torture you. MWAHAHAHAH.

Not really. I thought this over and decided not to take pictures of all the projects and cards and classes and stuff. Part of the fun of CKU is oohing and aahing over all the cool papers and acrylics and sketches. Right?

But I will tell you how the day progressed. I can tell you that I started at 6 AM blogging about the first day. I couldn’t sleep and hadn’t had a chance to blog at all. So I got the writing done. I didn’t post it until later when I could catch a break for 20 mins and post. Sorry for making you wait so long.

On to the good stuff. Meg and I started out with a Venti Vanilla Latte each and trotted off to our Homeroom. A little explanation is needed here. Each person selected their homeroom assignments when they registered. The choices ran from A-G. Meg and I chose G for “Georgia”! Then we settled into this one room to spend the entire day creating an album of our experiences here at CKU. All of our materials were in the tote that we received on registration (YAY ME, I called it yesterday). So the instructors didn’t have to drag around all of these boxes of materials with them. They did however bring all of their own favorite tools for each of us to use. The teachers in charge of the first and last pages of the album start off with Homeroom A. Second page in B and so on. We were in G, so we started with our last two page spread for the album.

It was taught by Margie Romney-Aslett, the longest name in scrapbooking. She had this cute journaling idea where the page folded over for a flap element. She also had us tying ribbons onto big conchos. Of course I poke myself within five seconds of the class. You would think after four years of scrapping I would know better. I don’t. Ouch.

The second class of the day was given by Brandon from Piggy Tales. She was showing off her new product called Barn Doors. Really cute idea for an interactive element on your layouts.

Then came ALI!! Of course I was out blogging with y’all. Which made me late to class. You would not believe the look I caught from the teacher. OOOOH, I was in trouble. HA. Ali was more like, “Where have you been, Mister?” Ali’s layout had us making this cool journaling block.

Tim followed right behind her dragging all of his really cool tools with him. I have a shot of how a working station would look like. I have to explain all of these cool tools so I can put them on my wish list. He started off giving out these craft mats that were like Silpat mats. You can ink, stamp, glue, adhesive, emboss, and heat on them with craft irons. Those are like $20 for one. I wonder if the $6 Silpats will work as well? Of course he had his Ranger inks, but he came with a blending tool where you had to pat onto the ink pad. Start in a circular motion and work onto the paper to blend in the ink. It was so awesome to watch how the more you rubbed the darker the ink would blend onto the edges. As you worked further into the paper, the effects became more subtle. Ultra cool! That tool is $6, but you have to buy extra pads for it. I hope I am not boring you. Here’s one more and then I will move on. Tim has this little round tool with notches into it. Set inside each notch is a titanium blade. You use it to distress the edges of papers or ribbons, or chipboard. These are like $5.99.

One of the funniest moments of the day came when I went to hunt down DiAnn and Dave to give them their name badge holders. I found them in their homeroom and didn’t notice what Dave’s hat said right away. As I got closer it dawned on me. It read “I’m not GARY!” That is awesome! See, the thing is, with all of my swaps and stuff with the Yahoo group any male scrapper at CKU this time was mobbed with tons of questions. There were four other men scrappers here at Houston so the ladies had a lot to chose from. Poor Dave and ‘the other’ Gary had to suffer through constant streams of people coming up to them saying, “Can I give you my cards now?” “Did I already pay you for the badge holders?” “Are you Gary?” So naturally Dave needed to wear a sign that said, “I’m not Gary.” And wear it he did, all day.

Here I have to stop and discuss the lunch. CKU provides lunch for us each day of the event. I wasn’t expecting much, having been at a lot of school conventions. But let me tell ya! The sandwich was a ham and cheese on croissant. Really good. They served ice cold lemonade. The usual chips and banana was included. What won my heart though were the TWO large chocolate chip cookies that had been dipped in chocolate. GAAAH!

After lunch we had Lisa Bearnson come in and help us put together a two pager that uses a fun stamp. It was shaped like the female character on the restroom. I was able to turn it into the male by skipping the edges of the skirt. Hey, it worked!

Our final class of the day was actually our first cover page for the album. This was taught by Stephanie Kropp from Little Yellow Bicycle. Better known as Deja Views. Well, LRB is a division of DV that markets to the independent stores. She was showing off her new product line with this cool metallic accented paper.

By this time it is 3:45 and we’d been going for six hours. I had to nap because of all the tossing and turning I did last night. I went upstairs and left Meg to roam around in the mall. I had to break the news to her after she returned with gifts for her kids that she had a present in the room. Her hubby sent her a special bouquet full of Peruvian Lillies. Did I mention that he already stuffed her suitcase with a daily note of inspiration for his wife? Oh, and hid a pack of rainbow twizzlers and skittles in her craft case. I officially hate him. I need to have him write out a primer for some people.

We discussed dinner for a bit and decided to find a Tex Mex restaurant. The concierge recommended this place called Escalantes about a mile away. Meg warned me about the Texas heat, so we cabbed it over. The food was really good. They will come and make fresh guacamole tableside. Some of the plate combinations were interesting. BBQ ribs and enchiladas. Hmm? I ordered an empanada, enchilada with Chihuahuan cheese and bacon wrapped shrimp. The bacon had this amazing grilled crust on it. Oh, forgot to tell you about the Pomegranate Margaritas. It was a great meal.

We cabbed back and rushed upstairs since it was already 6:30. I had to grab all of the gift boxes for the instructors, plus the boxes of Christmas card swaps, my supply case and my camera. Then we got to hang out in the hallway waiting for the elevators. Ugh, definitely something to put on the worst part of the trip. We squeezed in at the Rhinestone Crop Girls’ table right before the speeches started. Meg and I grabbed our camera and went to sit up front on the floor for better angles.
They started the festivities off with the Dorm Contests. We were treated to a rounding rendition of ‘We are the Scrappers’ by the Isle of Scrappers. And then came a skit by the SPAGA group (Super Paper Artists Galactic Alliance). They were being harassed by that evil, naughty, awful Ms. Purrfectionist. We had to decide through the Clap-O-Meter which group would take home the grand prize. The Isle won by a slim margin so everyone got a goodie prize.

Next Tim came up and introduced Ali (as if we didn’t know HER). It was sweet though. Ali talked to the whole group detailing what she has come to realize about her reasons for scrapping. Part of her slideshow included a shout out to all of the instructors. What she did was really cute. She put up a baby picture alongside the instructor. I am definitely going to have to do that with the Peaches!! It was a touching moment for all of us as we shared in her personal memories and learned more about why we scrap as we made connections to what we were seeing on the slideshow. All of us scrap for different reasons, but we all scrap to celebrate life.

Then Lisa came on stage to walk us through this album that focuses only on us. What are our stories, what are our favorites, what are the memories we don’t want to forget. I ran into a problem here mainly because the album and papers were mostly done in pinks and oranges with flowers everywhere. If I am really going to make an album to showcase me I am going to have to wait and work on this at home. I think I’ll cover the album and pick a different paper line, but use the sketches because the idea is well done.

Right about now it is 8:30 and the Yahoo group had planned to do their group photo together at that time. I went up front and asked if we could use the stage for this purpose. It took a bit of doing, but we got about 50 people up there. Problem. We are all scrappers and we all came armed with our cameras. I promised to create a Snapfish account and upload these pictures to there for the group to access. I am writing this to remind myself of this one last responsibility. ***THING TO DO***

The last Bonus workshop of the day was given by Stacy Croniger from Paper Crafts. She of course had us working on a card pack. I am currently trying to make up my own collection of card ideas because I am always making cards for some reason or other. I pulled apart all my old CK mags looking for card ideas and by the end I had a huge stack. These card ideas tonight were really great and can be adapted for almost any occasion.

Right now it is 12:18. Meg is still working on finishing up her Lisa Bearnson album. Remember she has small children and actually completing this when she gets home is probably slim to none. The gal from CKU events team is up on stage calling out names for door prizes. Apparently we have to scream really loudly if she calls our name in order to claim our prize. I have not won ….yet.

CKU!!!!!!

2008-06-05T10:12:00.005-05:00

It is 6:30 A.M. on Thursday. Meg is still asleep, so I won’t tell you where I am blogging from.

I have spent an entire day getting here to Houston in order to Meet and Mingle with some of my favorite people from the scrapbooking world (Sorry Peaches, y’all know you’re still Number One!).

I got up at 9 yesterday and did some yoga and exercised because I knew I’d probably get no where near a gym for the rest of the week. Before I knew it, 10:30 rolls around and I have to leave if I was going to make it to Meg’s by 11:30.
Made the required stop at Starbucks for an iced Vanilla Latte and then hit the road.
Meg was hugging and kissing on her kids and mom as I pulled up. We loaded all of her stuff in the back of my Jeep, took one look at each other, giggled, and drove away!

We had some lunch and spent some time just hanging out trying to decompress from the real world. We chatted over chicken ceasars and contemplated ordering hard cider. We passed on the latter, but the conversation was great. I can’t remember when I’ve had a long conversation with an adult.

Anyway, I am keeping you from the stuff you really care about! The plane ride was uneventful except for the fact on this really tine airplane two people also going to CKU sit right in front of us. Marie and Michelle were so funny and we bantered back and forth quite a bit on the ride. During the hour and 38 mins in the air, Meg watched two episodes of Weeds. I couldn’t hear the dialog, but I could see the monitor screen. That show is risqué! She was giggling away though. We landed in 30 mph crosswinds so it was kinda bumpy.

As we got off the plane, I called Michelle A who was already at baggage claim for Southwest. We were going to meet up with her and share a taxi ride to the hotel. Well, Michelle and Marie came through as our cruise directors and spotted two other people who also needed a ride. Little beknownst to us but one of them was Michelle Van Etten! The designer for Prima and one of our instructors this week! How cool is that? Being the Beta Boy that I am, I swooped in and saved the day by securing an entire van from Super shuttle for $15 a person.

45 mins later we arrived at the Westin Galleria. We all check in and promise to catch up with each other later. Meg and I lug our stuff up to the ninth floor and dump it all into our rooms. The rooms are pretty nice. The beds have those thick crisp sheets and loads of pillows. There’s plenty of room to move around in and a nice long wide desk for us to organize stuff for the day. I overheard someone say that the rooms are usually $300 a night (EEK!) so the price we paid for them being at CKU is a steal!

Both of starving since it is now 6 o’clock our time. We head down to the mall. Right outside the entrance we spot a Starbucks and a Godiva Chocolatier. Could this be heaven? We were drooling over the smooth coconut truffles as the counter girl, Lola (love her!) started asking us what we wanted. We shyly respond that we probably needed to put some food in our stomach first, but that we’d be back for dessert. She highly recommended the Kona Grill for its great sushi. Plus they are right in their middle of their happy hour pricings!

We quickly ordered margaritas and a plate of the most yummiest pot stickers. Do you know when you bite into food and you can taste all of the ingredients in it? These were beyond great! We debated over which kind of sushi rolls to order and just decided to get one of each. I would have taken a photo of the California, Atlantic, Spicy Tuna and the shrimp but we were so hungry.

Then it was time to run back to the room and get ready for the Meet and Mingle. We briefly stopped at Lola’s spot and ordered truffles to go. I had to pull all of the name badges and the card swaps and grab my binder with the lists of orders together. Snatch my camera and we were off. GUESS who we saw in the elevator??? Tells me how this entire weekend is going to go, but we step on and there is LISA BEARNSON just hanging out. Both Meg and I are tongue tied and barely got two sentences out to her. We saw her later and had a more intelligent convo so it was much better.

We had to go to the usual A-C, D-H, M-S lines to get our registration packets and then head upstairs for our goodie totes. I will let the pictures stand for themselves. But let’s just say it was chock full o’ stuff! I believe all of it is going to be used tomorrow in our Inspiration stations to create the CKU album. I could be wrong.

Meg and I plopped ourselves down at one of the available tables and just waited. I told everyone on the Yahoo board that I would be around to pass out the name badges. Stand there and they will come. Mob City! Thank goodness I had Meg there. I pressed her into servitude when folks started throwing money and Christmas cards and gifts my way. It was bedlam, I tell ya! When it finally calmed down a bit I managed to take a peek around.

GUESS who was at the table behind us about 50 feet away? *Drumroll please* JESSICA SPRAGUE!!! She was looking great, I think she chose to wear green in honor of her new site rolling out today. Isn’t she amazing that she can roll out a new website AND be at this event on the same day? Meg and I had to wait a very long time before the crowds dispersed around her before we could approach and be accepted into her court (HA!). Here are two shots of us together. One, I am doing the Beta Boy ‘save’ pose. The other was more sedate.

I am so ashamed of how star struck I was when I first went over to talk to her. But she immediately put me at ease with this super huge smile. she gave me a big hug and told me how great it was to meet me. HUH? Here I am falling over my own shoes, and Jessica Sprague is glad to meet me. Will wonders never cease? I have to say that Jessica is such a great personality to meet. Someone who is really friendly and down to earth. She even did a little dance to show how excited she was to be at CKU. She and I chatted back and forth about the new site. That girl will not give up the goods on where those fantastic flower backgrounds came from. After coming down from cloud 9 of having met my own personal Super Hero, it was awesome to meet and have a conversation in real life with Ms. Jessica Sprague.

More and more people began to file out and head down to dinner, or to the cropping area. So Meg and I took this opportunity to meet the other GREATS! Here we are with Ali Edwards who was so sweet to remember me from Atlanta. And there we are with Tim Holtz who told me I was too popular because everyone signed my bag. Well, ya know. When you got it, you got it!

The rest of the night was spent cutting, taping, stuffing, and wrapping the gift boxes. These are to be Thank You gifts for the instructors from the Yahoo group. It was amazing how quickly people pulled together and organized this stuff to go in there.

Then I had to go to bed. It was midnight my time and I was ready to crash! After all, tomorrow is another day!

TWO DAYS til CKU!!

2008-06-02T12:11:00.002-05:00

Oh the sweet agony. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive. I have packed and repacked all of my stuff. Gone through the checklist so many times to make sure that I have everything I need. Finished all three of my card swaps and ATC swap. I even organized a collection of items to put in a gift basket for the instructors. Made sure that I had the name badge holders and the card swap materials. I can just imagine the angry mob surrounding me with paper trimmers and tape runners if I forgot those things.
I am going to print out my flight reservations right now. So really all I have to do is sit back and WAIT!!
If you know me at all, you are aware of how much I hate to wait, especially for the FUN. I mean I am so anxious that I mowed the backyard. THREE times - Aside: we have an electric lawn mower that can't cut through thick grass. So I have to cut it down in stages. Not fun, but at least I don't have to worry about gas and pulling that starter any more.
I'm not meeting at Meg's house until 11:30 on Wednesday. This is still too far away, people!

Raven's Cliff Falls

2008-06-01T18:05:00.003-05:00

When we went into the visitor's center at Anna Ruby, they gave us a map of all the other area waterfalls. One was the Raven's Cliff Falls. It was a 2.5 mile walk into the falls, so that would be good exercise right?

Oy, what a walk that was. It was a very rustic trail with only a few bridges made up of split logs.

There was one spot off of the trail that was beneath one of the smaller falls. So I manuevered my way down to it to take some pictures. Gordon decides to follow. As he is almost down, his foot slips, water bottle goes flying, and he does a pirouette in the air. Landing...on his FEET! Thanks be to the WII Fit, eh? All that yoga was good for something.

After this, I asked him to take some pictures of me down by the falls. Here's a shot he took. That, if you agree with me, definitely makes up for those earlier shots from the Battlegrounds (see earlier post):

One of the funniest moments from the whole day came right after the slip up. We were walking the trial and then one of the branches on the path decides to move. Gordon had almost stepped right on it. It was this arm long gray SNAKE! You should have heard the boy scream. It wasn't exactly like one of those high pitched things, but more like a WHAAAAOH OH OH. Imagine the sound getting weaker as it continues because Gordon raced down the trail about 500 yards! hee hee

The falls at the end of the trail were actually quite pretty. Worth the trek in, sweat and all. Who knew such vistas were tucked in the woods of North Georgia? Well, other than the guidebook writers.

Anna Ruby Falls

2008-05-31T20:41:00.006-05:00

I'm on a mission to hunt down all of the great hikes within a 60 mile radius of my house. Who knew that someone already beat me to the punch? There's a book out there called 60 Hikes in 60 miles from Atlanata. And with me being so close to that, I am in heaven!

I've already done several of the hikes listed in the book (Cloudland Canyon, Amicolola, Tallulah Gorge) and recently did one at Kennesaw Battlegrounds because of their suggestions.

Today I needed to break in some new hiking shoes I bought for Hawaii. Hiking the Volcano National Park is quite an ordeal, so I hear. Pulled up the website for that book I mentioned earlier and found a hike listed for Anna Ruby Falls. It is located up above Helen, Ga. Hmm, never been there!

It took almost two hours thanks to construction on 85. But we arrived and found the spot in Unicoi State Park with little trouble. The hike was almost non-existent, since it took less than a mile to reach the falls. But MY GOODNESS! Talk about being worthwhile. Here's a shot:

That's Gordon at the bottom of one side of the falls. There were two cascading spectacles. It was really quite beautiful.

Here's a shot of the other side :

Okay, one more picture of the whole reason we traveled two hours ($35 worth of gas!).

It's late. I'm tired. I promise more tomorrow!

How easy is it to forget.

2008-05-30T19:31:00.002-05:00

School has been out for an entire week. Do I miss it?

Umm, no.

How easy it was to completely lose all of the stress, frustration and paperwork.

Now I sit around all day and wonder, "What should I do today? Do I have anything I need to get done? How long til lunch?" Then I get out of bed.

I have time to read now (two books). Time to go through all of my old Creating Keepsakes magazines and tear out what I want (three hours). Attend lunches that last two hours. Watch old dvd's I haven't seen for a while. Oh, and teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator.

One of my biggest problems is staying on my diet. With more free time, I am uncovering those deep seated desires for CHOCOLATE! I had to stop myself physically from going into the Coldstone Creamery. Oy. I think I need a sponsor to help me over the withdrawals.

Okay, I'm gonna stop rambling now and watch Last Comic Standing.

My Story

2008-05-30T19:30:00.002-05:00

I wrote this out over on the Spraground. Thought I'd throw it in here.

My story?But why?It's boring and lame-O.Not inspiring at all.But I am proud of my scrappin' journey!!Hmm, where to begin? I have always tried different crafting hobbies as a means to express my creativity. Nothing seemed to fit perfectly. I couldn't play a musical instrument, painting came to stick figures for me, can't sew a straight line, quilt quickly, or even design my own cross stitch. I fell into scrapbooking quite accidently. I hosted a Murder Mystery Party with a 50's soda shop theme in October of 2004. Everyone came decked out in poodleskirts, leather jackets, ponytails, and slicked back hair. It was so great. The pictures were even better. I knew I couldn't just stick these into a magnetic album. I googled 'scrapbook' and found sb.com, and then started to talking to like minded individuals. Before long I had an entire group of people in my area who wanted to hang out and crop together (we just celebrated our third year of meeting once a month!). I was hooked. I think the missing link to my creativity was having a supportive group of friends to encourage and inspire me. I turned to digi in Feb of 2005 because I was teaching technology at an elementary school. They had a business version of Elements loaded and I started poking around. I immediately fell in love with the freedom it offered me. With paper I would look at the layouts and want that EXACT paper, the perfect embellishment, that color ribbon, etc. It was very stressful and within 3 months I spent $4000 on tools and supplies. OY!It was much easier to collect what I needed with digi without poking holes in my pocket. I could also recolor and resize to my liking. Pretty soon my brain started asking, "I wonder how they made that brad." I googled 'digital scrapbook tutorials' and was amazed at how much was available to me. I studied one tut after the other and pretty soon became pretty adept at creating my own stuff. It was so freeing!I joined another message board and was asked to become one of their design team members. Not long after I was selling kits and stuff at their store. It became difficult to juggle both my creative side and my career. I had to choose one or the other. Sigh... I chose teaching because it paid the bills. I didn't give up my digi scrapping though. Next, I stumbled onto the Spraground right about the time Jessica offered her Now We're Rocking class, so I jumped at the chance to learn more. Her teaching style is so encouraging and easy that I was hooked. I stood in the long line all day to sign up for her beta class of Digi in Deep. LOVED that class too. But I felt like something was still missing. I didn't have a perfect set yet. With CKU-Houston looming (21 days!!) Jessica, being the awesome person she is, offered her digi album participants a free U&R membership. Now how could I pass that up??That's the story of my journey. King of convuluted and backwards, I know. But one that makes me supremely happy. Happy that is until Jessica offers her next class!!Thanks for listening.

Two Weeks til CKU

2008-05-21T21:06:00.004-05:00

School is out. Yes, you heard correctly. I am officially done with the school year with students!

Now all of my thoughts can turn to something fun. Something I've been waiting for some time now.

CREATING KEEPSAKES UNIVERSITY!!!!!

I am headed to Houston, TX for five full days of digital scrapbooking with Jessica Sprague. This is the first year CK is offering a digital album track. And of course I had to take it!

I begged and pleaded and begged some more and finally convinced my Peachy friend, Meg, to come with me.

I am so excited about this. These thoughts of an interactive time with my favorite digi goddess instructor is pretty much what got me through the last sixty days of a rough year. The amount of interaction I threw myself into with CKU shows insight into my frame of mind. Actually how much I wanted to escape the humdrum of my daily job.

I'm in charge of collecting the money and passing out namebadge holders. I am in charge of collecting and then redistributing not one, but two Christmas Card swaps. I joined an Anything Goes card swap and an ATC (artist trading cards) swap. So much to do I will have to carry an itinerary!

Right now I am waiting for my tshirts (three of which I designed) from CafePress. I must be weird to be waiting at the door watching for the UPS man. Who knows.

My homework for class is all complete and burned on CD's awaiting the plane ride. I haven't exactly started packing, but I have definitely started thinking about packing. ScrappyNan showed off all of her goodies from CKU-Chicago. I just KNOW I will need a whole other suitcase to bring it all back home with me.

I definitely have to remember to pack the 100 namebadges for the yahoo group (hi you guys!!). Here's a shot of what they look like:

We did a whole vote for the color choices. The design is something I cooked up. It's a little small and not placed where I would put it. But the name badge holders are going to be much cooler than those plastic doohickeys they usually give out.

If I forget these, I will have some very unhappy individuals circling around me!

So, in only two short weeks I will be boarding a Delta airplane next to Meg and flying to Houston to enjoy myself!

I've been SACKED

2008-05-10T08:04:00.003-05:00

Jessica Sprague is such a fount of inspiration. She sent us over to the AIGA design gallery (http://designarchives.aiga.org/) to check out all the really cool idea generators. I found this paper sack at #49 and thought it would make a fun embellishment on a layout.

So, while I was playing I made four sacks just for you! One is blank and the other three have barcodes.

Hope you enjoy!

[url=http://www.4shared.com/file/47084385/15f0ae49/SG_Sackedzip.html] SG_Sacked [/url]

I belong in the ZOO!

2008-03-30T09:43:00.004-05:00

The Atlanta Zoo offered a Free Educator Day. I haven't been to the zoo in so long that I thought it would be a perfect way to spend a lazy Saturday.

And it WAS! The weather channel promised rain, but in the early morning it was bright and warm.

We had to stand in a long line to prove that we were actually teachers and then we could go inside. It was very busy today. Seemingly everyone getting the same idea at the same time.

Even though there were tons of people with their children, I was much more impressed with the manners shown here. Nothing like the Aquarium where people just knock your camera out of your hands and don't even stop. I actually experienced one woman moving her child so I could get a shot. Wow!

I was playing with my aperature mode and thought there would be plenty of light since we were outside so I left the iso on 200. Every picture I was snapping was horribly blurred. Remember my complaints about Gordon's picture taking skill? Well, it seems it may NOT have been his fault after all.

I switched to auto and got the shots. Once I checked the Metadata I noticed that the iso was all over 500. Hmm? Thank goodness. I thought I would have to send in my camera to be fixed. It would take six weeks to get it back. Umm, that's not good since I am flying to San Francisco on Friday.

Overall, we had an awesome day at the zoo. These free educator days at Atlanta attractions are indeed a benefit of teaching!

Should I be mad?

2008-03-25T18:56:00.005-05:00

I planned an outing with Gordon and told him I wanted to use this time to get some shots for my Jessica Sprague class and maybe some candid and portrait shots.
I took some shots of him, here's one I thought turned out pretty well:

Then I gave him the camera and told him I wanted some portrait shots. Now, I've seen him take some amazing shots of landscapes and other things so thought this would be a no brainer.

Here are the results:

I'm not sure if I'm being nitpickey here, but my feet are cut off. The focus is too far away, the background is entirely cluttered and they are BLURRY! Plus, I don't even know what is going on with my face...

Should I be mad?

Got the Shot!

2008-03-23T19:24:00.004-05:00

I saw this really cool idea in a UK magazine and have been wanting to try it since I bought my Jeep back in May.

I finally convinced Gordon to come out with me and set up the tripod. Eventhough the weather was not as warm as once promised he braved the elements to humor me. He reluctantly stood around while I repositioned myself through six shots. He grumbled and groaned about the remote shutter release doo-hickey.

But, I got the shot! Here's how:

I brought a tripod and a remote control shutter release. Set the camera up on the tripod and angled it where I had the car in full 3/4 profile. I took a test shot and made sure everything was fine. I planned out the five different spots so they don't overlap each other.

At home I opened all six shots in Photoshop CS3. I dragged them all onto one document. Gave each a layer mask and filled it with black at the beginning. Then at the top of all this, I added a levels layer that brought the light up and added a little punch to the darks. Next was a hue/ saturation adjustment layer that brought out the greens more.

Then I clicked on the brush palette, made sure the first layer mask was clicked and NOT the picture box. I knew I had the right one because the brush colors changed to black and white. I changed the white to the foreground and with a feathered brush I started painting in my first 'self' onto the original Jeep shot.

I continued to brush on a new 'self' until each one was uncovered and made to look like it was all one shot.

Fun, eh?

TIM HOLTZ RULZ!!

2008-03-21T20:23:00.003-05:00

OMIGOSH! So Freakin' Awesome! Tim Holtz got the go ahead from CKU to offer a FREE TUITION to someone who posts on his blog (timholtz.typepad.com) about why the want to go to CKU. The only catch? It has to be in 25 words or less. Ugh

Here's my entry:

Sadness = digital scrapper assisting Ali Edwards at CKU07 just to meet his heroes. Happiness = CKU08 including entire digital album track. I wanna go!

Think it will fly?

Am I CKU Obsessed?

2008-03-19T19:55:00.007-05:00

I am not saying this is a bad condition to have in any shape or form, but I am starting to worry myself.

If you don't know yet, my bestest friend, Meg and I are going to our first Creating Keepsakes University event. I have booked the flight to Houston, Texas on June 4th. I have started my homework for all of the classes. And I've even created a packing list. Also, I am posting like crazy on the yahoo group (love you guys!).

But the issue is I don't know when to stop.

Not only am I heading up one Christmas Card Swap. I have opened up a second one because of all the great response. I agreed to join in the ATC swap and think I just signed up for the 'Anything Goes' card swap. Now I've decided the yahoo group should have customized name badge holders!

They will look like this (we haven't voted on the color choice yet. I wanted Orange and Blue, but Meg balked at that choice):

I got the idea for this from a terrific blogger ( ScrappyNan ) who headed this up in Chicago. She even gave some of these as prizes to the instructors. Cool idea. I needed to get at least 100 orders to get a good price. After two days I have 32 orders. Isn't that awesome!

Spurned on by that many requests, I came up with a little logo for the top flap.

Whaddya think?

My whole problem with this is that I have to make myself available to over 100 people now. I have to be in one place to give out, receive and redistribute TONS of materials that first night. When am I going to have time to enjoy myself?

Don't even get me started on whether or not I'm joining the M.A.N. frat at CKU. That is a whole other story!

I can't imagine anything else that I can volunteer for, but ya never know!

Green Gables Update

2008-03-16T10:41:00.002-05:00

I couldn't spend $14 on a book I wasn't even sure I was going to like. So I ordered it from the public library. It came so quickly...not a good omen. I started reading it with trepidition and by page 2 I was already offended. I don't want to ruin it, but Bertha Shirley should NOT be discussing personal information like that with her neighbor!!!
I've read up to the part where Bertha and Walter die and Anne is taken in by a woman with good intentions. I am going to continue because I haven't decided conclusively how I feel about it yet.
Stay tuned!

Chalky Numbers

2008-03-15T22:28:00.005-05:00

I saw this concept on a flyer this morning. It looked perfect for a school kit.

Let me know if there are any issues with it.
http://www.4shared.com/file/40916211/872c7e92/SG_ChalkyNumberszip.html

here's how I did it:
I clicked on my text tool and chose an Eras Bold ITC font set at 282%.

Next came the Control Click trick on the text layer. This created a marching ant border. Create a new layer on top of the text.

I went to Edit > Stroke and set it to 20 pts and chose a simple white color.
Click on the eye icon next to your text to hide it.

A new layer was needed underneath the outlined number. Here's where the brush comes in. I chose the Chalk 44 pixels brush in the default brush palette, and opened up the brush manipulator. I moved the spacing on the brush to 60% to spread it out for a nicer chalkier look.

Then I did nice even strokes back and forth underneath the letter outline trying to get it to look as if a student held the chalk sideways and ran it across the board.

You can see the final results.

Before Anne of Green Gables

2008-03-09T21:59:00.002-05:00

Has anyone else seen this?
Umm, say what? I saw this at Costco and almost fell over. My first thought was why are they messing with such a classic? Haven't they learned anything from the GWTW remakes?
Apparently Budge Wilson was asked to help honor the 100th anniversary of Lucy Maud Montgomery's favorite heroine. Budge is going to tell "in my own voice" the prequel of Anne's life before she arrives in Avonlea.
I think it's positively 'providential' that I just finished the entire Anne series for the first time in February. I tried before long time ago after first seeing the PBS show. I never got past book five because it got too lovely dovey for me. After going through the books again, I found that book five was actually my favorite. Who knew?
Okay, I digress. I'm still really upset that they are trying to mess with a perfectly good original.
If anyone reads this, PLEASE comment and let me know if I should attempt it.

Just cuz I love the ladies

2008-03-09T20:13:00.003-05:00

over at the SPRAGROUND!!!

Here's a freebie just for y'all.

It's the grungy and glittery picture overlay featured in my "Ouchies" layout. Thanks for asking. Makes me want to start designing again!
http://www.4shared.com/file/40300924/69ae6335/SG_030308_GrungeFramezip.html]

JS Week 4- Digi Lesson Results

2008-02-24T11:47:00.002-05:00

Here it is, my final class assignment:

There were tons of great techniques for this one. I love all of the elements that Jessica chose to use. The colors and the frostiness of the grunge made me think of Christmas. Since I had these shots already begging for a layout I married the two together. How'd it come out?
The journaling on here doesn't give half of the scope necessary for this past holiday. Christmas was a major one for the Fryns Family in '07. It was the first time in fifteen years that almost the entire clan was together again. Karen was the only element sorely missed. Everyone gathered at Paul and Cindy's Christmas night for a feast of goodies and present swapping.
It brought back so many memories of growing up with these people. I must confess, even I got a little teary eyed! Although the surprise gift that Lisa gave to Darrin and I brought back the laughter. Can you imagine waiting 32 years for a practical joke?
Here's the back story for future generations: When my family moved into the house some still live in today, we left behind some good friends. Barbara Nichols was just one of my mom's confidants. She happened to take a liking to me especially. I think someone told me that she had lost a baby around the time that I was born. Anyway, the first Christmas after the move I was 6 and my brother 4. Barbara came to visit with gifts. I got this SUPER COOL 6 Million Dollar Man action figure....my brother? A funpad. If you are not familiar with these petite packages of fun, they are like coloring books with some puzzle pages thrown in. Needless to say, my younger brother pitched a fit for all to see. Embarrassed, Barbara left and came back from the Toys 'R Us down the street. Unceremoniously she presented my brother with a Rescuers Down Under Board Game. He was finally placated. And I got to seeth over his behavior. Hmph!

Now fast forward 32 years later. My sister kept hinting about this 'special present' she had for Darrin and I and that we had to be together when she gave it. On Christmas night with the entire family gathered around, she consented to hand over the contraband. Darrin opened his first and found a 6 Million Dollar Man action figure in an original space rocket. Me? What do you think I got for my troubles? A funpad.

As the disappointment was about to set in, Lisa whips out a second action figure all for me! She managed to track down two pristine dolls on ebay of all places and snagged them for less than $30. And another chapter of our family history is brought to light for the next generation. Everyone had a good laugh over this. Personally I am still a little mad.

Frosty Dreams

2008-02-18T22:13:00.003-05:00

Here it is! My results from Jessica Sprague's week 3 class. I've been wanting to scrap these shots of that BLIZZARD we had in Georgia recently. It was such a fun day taking shots of the snow, even though I had to carry my umbrella around so the lens didn't get wet.
I played around with the color scheme, took out the hearts from the grunge frames and replaced them with snowflakes (from adobe.exchange). I also torn the edge of the dot paper and put a paper core tear edge. I used lessons from Tandika Starr. Still love here. The font is from dafont called Frosty's Winter Land.
What do you think?

GA Peach Greet - Archiver's

2008-02-17T21:52:00.002-05:00

Today was officially the wackiest Peach Greet ever! Who knew that the Archiver’s Make and Take weekends would be so popular? Who knew they would open their doors an entire HOUR before regular times? Apparently not the customer who called in yesterday and was told 9:30 and then showed up to have the room completely packed and not a seat to be found anywhere. Boy, was she livid!

Yep, it was crazy. I was up and putzing around and could have gone in earlier to reserve the five seats we would need. Unfortunately I was unaware of the time change and the well-liked weekend response. I got up there at 9:35 and was halted in the aisle by Jenn. She asked, “Umm, you’re here to crop? You’re people are probably already here, right?” Don’t you love how she knows us!! Come to find out only my friend, Carrie that I invited had managed to sneak into a seat. Sharon came up out of the stacks to introduce herself after having arrived at 9. She hadn’t gotten herself a seat, though. Jenn explained that they were trying to set up a small table for us in the back workroom.

I immediately call Courtney and Martina to fill them in. Their advice was to hang out until we were all there together. While we waited Carrie suggested we move the party to her house since she had a large dining room table that could easily accommodate all of us. The staff at Archiver’s managed to shuffle things around and find us three empty seats. Since Carrie had one, we were still one seat down. So I asked if it was okay to grab me a stool and I could prop myself in a corner near the back counter. They got it approved, but then turned around and gave my seat to someone else standing there at the counter. GAH!

Pretty soon all of us were assembled and decided that with the bleak fate of having to sit scattered around the room we would take Carrie up on her offer. We decided to shop and then grab a lunch to take with us before we left. I snagged a great pink baby album for my sister-in-law and thought about a doodle design book. Soon we were all piled into Courtney’s van and headed to Carrie’s.

She was right. Her table was more than adequate to fit us all. We ate and got settled into scrapping. Carrie was so ecstatic to have found other scrappers in her area and eagerly shared her previous albums with us. It was fun to watch her progression as a scrapper emerge. Reminds me of myself as a newbie. Can you believe it’s been four years? Oooh, that’s the first time I’ve said it myself. It just seems like yesterday that I discovered how to rip and ink papers!

We loved meeting Sharon and having her share her Disney album. The story about her 13 year old daughter realizing that the family trip was to be her first adventure with the Mouse was so great. Sharon also showed us how she was going to incorporate all of those character autographs into her album. I took a shot of it and will post it on the wink account.

Courtney was a whirlwind of activity with her college day pages. I think CCA was a good influence on her because she flew through FIVE pages. Martina was doing her thang with her LO about her daughter’s first scrap page. It was adorable! I was making some more pages for my digital school year in review. Carrie was finishing up some pages from her London trip where she got to go to a real live ball, gown and all. She needs to finish soon to get ready for that first grand baby on they way!

Sadly, the time to go came all too quickly. After dropping us all off back at Archiver’s we hit the road. Oh, except Martina who went back in to make good use of her 30% coupon. The mall was incredibly busy which made traffic just drag along. Another Peachy Day has come to a close.

2007-07-13T15:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Courtney for this awesome blinkie!!!

GAH! I was tagged

2007-06-30T17:37:00.000-05:00

These are the rules…. each player starts with 7 random facts about themselves on their Blog. People who are tagged need to blog 7 facts about themselves and post the rules as well. At the end of their blog list 7 people you are tagging. Let them know that they are tagged by leaving them a comment. My facts are:

1. I am currently on hold for my bank and have been for ten minutes. They suck.
2. I was all set to see a outdoor showing of ET when it got rained out. V. disappointed.
3. I got my first issue of Photoshop User and made my first payment on my Jeep on the same day. My anniversary. Whee
4. My dog follows me everywhere. I don't think it is out of love or anything, it's more out of "will he spontanesously drop food?"
5. I have been to every Peach Greets for the past two and a half years.
6. I just put all of my digi kits on sale at 37% off.
7. I am still on hold. Yep, they suck.

Seven taggees:
Courtney, Nicole, Jenn,