The Ballet

Saturday night, Curtis and I went to see "Alice in Wonderland" the ballet, performed by a local youth organization.  I had never been to a ballet so didn't really know what to expect.  Curtis said he was excited and scared.  As soon as it started and he saw the dancers in their costumes (especially pretty girl Alice), he turned to me with a huge grin on his face, and kept turning to smile at me for at least the first ten minutes.

It helped that he had seen the Disney movie a couple times, so he knew what was going on, since there was no talking or singing.  He knew who the characters were and was excited to see each new one appear.  I thought it was very well done, considering it was local talent, ages 5-16 (I'm guessing).  I know the moms of two of the little girls.  It was mostly girls, but there were four or five little boys.  The little 6-year-old King of Hearts was so cute next to the big 16-year-old Queen.

After the show, Curtis wanted to go say hi to Alice, and he asked me to take a picture of her.  Then he was pretty excited about his red rose sucker!  We had a great little "date night."

Scrapbook Progress, Marge's books

I finished the first book for Marge!  Her oldest child's book turned into just the right size project.  I matted all of the professional photos, and a few of the personal snapshots.  Every page got a border, and almost every page got an embellishment of some kind (sticker or paper-punched decoration).  I hope to deliver it to her next week.

The next child's book is much more intimidating.  There seems to be a lot more stuff in his pile than there was in hers.  I took a little break and made some cards, and I think I'll need a digital scrapbooking break after I get his stuff organized.  Pretty sure it's going to take more than one book to fit it all in.

The Return of "The Scrapbook Artist"

About a week ago, I got a call from a woman I had previously done some scrapbooking for (Marge).  It was probably close to two years ago, so I was completely surprised to hear from her, and to find out she had more albums for me to make.  The scrapbooking I did last time was pictures of her grandchildren.  We just used their professional pictures, so all I really had to do was mat them and label them.  On the phone she said she now wanted me to make albums of her children's pictures, so I figured it was the same type of thing.

I got quite a surprise when I went to her house and she had 4 separate bags ready for me--one for each child--and they contained not only professional portraits, but also snapshots, diplomas, programs, and more!  I get to tear apart the old albums (oldest child was born in 1969), put everything in order, and scrapbook it.

I've made a pretty good dent in oldest child's pile.  Got the old album torn up and everything into some semblance of chronological order.  It's hard when I don't know these people and nothing has dates on it.  So the chronology won't be perfect, but it will be close.  Some of the pictures weren't very good quality to begin with and are really starting to fade.  I made borders for every page and am adhering all the pictures.  then I will go back and do embellishments.

"The Evolution of My Scrapbooking Style"  will be a good topic for another post.

Top Five Signs Curtis Is Sick

5.  He asks to wear his pajamas all day.

4.  He refuses a cookie.

3.  He picks short books at bedtime.

2.  He asks for and drinks ice water.

1.  He takes a nap in the afternoon!

Snow Day Musings

As we approach our 3rd snow day in a row, let me take this opportunity to observe the following:

Snow days as a "single mom" of two preschoolers are vastly different from snow days as a single person!

When we first found out Andy was going overseas, I made a list of different activities the boys and I could do to keep busy.  It's amazing how only one change (the babysitter quitting) caused two other changes (a new daycare every morning, and a new preschool class every afternoon) that after only one week had us desperate just to stay home.  The list of activities was no longer needed.

And so, after three weeks of the new routine, the possibility of a snow day sounded pretty good.  The chance to stay home for a day, and avoid all the running around without any guilt for "skipping" preschool, was going to be good for us to catch our breath.

I was thinking back to my first year of teaching, when a snow day meant anxiously listening to the radio for the cancellation, calling my mom to see if she had the day off too, relaxing in my p.j.'s in front of the Today Show, drinking hot chocolate, and spending the whole day reading.  We had five such days in the first year of my career, but never three in a row!

Yesterday was my first official snow day as a mother of two.  We watched some TV, ate some junk food, and enjoyed not leaving the house.  Then came the second snow day.  And tomorrow another one!  The kids have really been pretty good; I'm the one who has the problem letting go of my plans to get a lot of cleaning done, or a lot of reading done, or even a lot of grading done.  It's taken two whole days to get two loads of laundry done, the house vacuumed and dusted, and half a book read.

It's all about perspective, and I need to get some.  Tomorrow my goal is to just do some fun things with the boys.  I'm sure I can accomplish it, and it's much more important than a clean house, anyway!

In which I actually discuss scrapbooking!

My blog address is "springfieldscrapbookartist" because my sister actually started this blog for me a year ago when I was still an active CM consultant, doing other people's scrapbooking for them.  I would still happily accept work as someone's scrapbook slave, but I am no longer a CM consultant.

Anyway, CM had a sale this month--20% off a digital scrapbook, including extra pages.  This is a really good deal.  Digital scrapping is cheaper than traditional, but only slightly, and of course any book I make will have more than the minimum number of pages.  I had started a 2010 family scrapbook in January of 2010, and kept up pretty well for . . . the first two months of the year!  Then I had done some off and on, and had completed several other projects in the meantime, but still was nowhere near done with the book.  And along came the sale!

I worked like a dog most evenings in January and got the book to a point I was happy with, but definitely did not cover the whole year.  I only made it to May!  One lesson learned is that I need to be more liberal with the delete button for my photos.  I take a lot of pictures "since they can just be deleted," but then I don't delete them, and even though some are not that great, they end up in a scrapbook.  Silly.

Another lesson is that digital scrapbooking is in a lot of ways easier than traditional, but it can quickly become even more time consuming.  Or maybe that's just me.  If I'd had a stack of pictures, some paper, and a blank album, I probably could have slapped it together a lot faster.  Digital brings out a level of perfectionism in me that traditional doesn't.  Since it's not glued down, I can fiddle with it endlessly, whereas with traditional, I'll apply the glue, turn the page, and move on.  Very rarely do I go back and add to a page.

So I finally got the book done, with a whole day to spare before the sale ended, and then I couldn't get the book to upload to the website!  I waited 10-15 minutes for the preview to load, and then got an error message.  So I tried again, waited another 10-15 minutes for the preview to load, did not get an error message, and started the actual upload.  This took over an hour, and at the last minute--ERROR MESSAGE!  Talk about frustrating!  Fortunately (?) I knew a friend was having a similar problem, so I assumed it was an overload on the company's website, and I had a day to spare.  Tried it the next afternoon, done in 30 minutes!  Ordered the book and saved my 20%!  I can't wait for it to arrive.

This whole process reminds me of producing the school yearbook.  You're so anxious to see the finished product, and then once it's in your hands, you realize you've already seen all the pictures, read all the copy, and memorized every inch of every layout.  You're still proud of your creation, but the wonder of it is just not there.  There is no newness, no surprises.  You just have to hope other people appreciate how hard you've worked.