Productive Crop

It was such a nice 4-day weekend at the Wisconsin Lions Camp in Rosholt, where both the totem pole of creativity and...

Louis the Lion were the guardian of scrapbookers everywhere – but especially at Croptoberfest!

We had about 40 of us ladies for the weekend this year...

And of course my fave scrapper was my high school BFF who came up from Madison area to join me. Leave it to us to wait until day 3 and no showers to take our selfie. We know better. We will be better. But we still had a fabulous time catching up on life and fueling each other's creativity.

My first goal was to finish our 2017 "family memories" book, which included nephew Colin and Amy's wedding.

And family season-SKOL time, too! Some things just need to be documented!

Was thrilled to finish my slightly over-thick 2017 album before going to bed Saturday night.

So Sunday I got to see the 'Tober part of Croptoberfest and get my second half-hour massage. It's quite necessary actually. I also had to say goodbye to Julie. Then got a lot of 2018 pages done, including...

Family visiting central Wisconsin for junior high basketball tournament...

And a winter drive not far from our house! 

Thanks to horror movies, I had a bit of a stressful evening sleeping in a cabin by myself since the others weren't staying until Monday. Survived, for the record. Then when I got to my table I realized how one empty 8-foot table on Friday can explode into scrap overload during the weekend. We do require a lot. Don't ever question it.

Since I forgot to order additional 2018 pictures, the only thing I had to do this morning was shower (finally), pack up my cabin stuff and my scrap stuff. So I spent a few hours organizing (and tossing) some of the heap of stuff above. 

Overall I am happy with my progress for the weekend – into May of 2018 when I return for Camp Crop-A-Lot in February!

Will I ever catch up? Who knows? Though at one time this weekend hubby suggested I should do this monthly. No argument from me!

One More Sleep

Who's so excited for her scrapbooking weekend that she had her car packed LAST night? Apparently, THIS girl!

I was missing a few key items that had to wait until tonight/tomorrow morning... like my clothes for the weekend. Even though I'll wear the same thing probably all 4 days. And the food and snacks – which half are in the fridge right now.

Including my Pumpkin Spice Spice Baby Trifle I whipped together after work! 

Now I just have to throw my clothes together and hopefully I'll be all set to hit the road at 8 a.m. Must make the most of 4 days! Ha. 

I don't know if I'll have time or connectivity to blog at all. I'll be working to finish up my 2017 "family memories" album and get a good start at 2018. My high school BFF Julie will be joining me again (yay). Sometimes we get more distracted chit-chatting than scrapping. But you know what? I wouldn't change that for anything. 

So no judging on my productivity (or lack of it). I really need these 4 days out of the office!

Plus, reliving memories is so fun and healing. Today my dad would have been 98 years old. Logically, I know he wouldn't have made it this far. But that doesn't make me miss him any less. I scrapbook to preserve moments in time that I want to cherish from this day forward. 

I mean if you can find a hobby that's both fun and therapeutic, you gotta grasp it and hang on!

Find Your Happy Place

Love Chuck's good advice! I sort of did embrace this concept today. At the end of the work day I was talking with a co-worker who had a question. I said "That didn't come up in yesterday's team meeting." She's like, "That was this morning." My response: "Today has been 3 days long!"

We've all been there.

I had a very last-minute rush project come in right before lunch. Let's just say there were a few ways I wanted to react. None positive. Instead, I said, "I'm going to leave the building and go to my happy place over lunch to reframe my mind."

Sometimes my happy place is a golf course or the front deck or even King Cone. Today it was Hobby Lobby. Did I need anything? No. But I found a big multi-color pack of fine tip markers ON SALE to use at scrapbooking camp this weekend! 

And that was all the happy elixir I needed.

I will credit yesterday's speaker for some of that. He pointed out that there's this space in time when receive information and when we react to it. Try to make that space wide enough so you make a wise choice in your reaction.

Frankly, yes, it IS hard to do. 

Thank goodness there are happy places only 10 minutes away!

Find yours.

Step Aside: I'm a Pro

I was so excited at work today that I got another opportunity to meet and hear inspirational words from Paul Wesselmann – The Ripples Guy. Refer to last year's blog when he first visited my workplace. 

Today's 90-minute session was called "Thriving with time, energy, and focus." Basically, I figured it was going to be about time and stress management. But as usual, he spoke to me in so many different ways. So much to unpack from that, but I'll share a few tidbits that hit home first.

When he started talking about procrastination, I was like whoa, how does he know I'm not just a regular crastinator, but a PROcrastinator?!

Part of the reason we procrastinate is because the task facing us is DUST (fitting for my housekeeping procrastination):

• Difficult – so we feel overwhelmed
• Unclear – so we're confused
• Scary – so we're afraid or it triggers fears
• Tedious – it's too boring to do

Which totally makes sense. Honestly, it is not an issue at all in my professional life. But personal life... yup, I would say most things are in the D category because I am overwhelmed... and it usually involves D-cluttering efforts. You know what I mean? (If you don't, you don't need to read anymore – unless you want some ideas how to address it.)

First, the fact that we can recognize why we're acknowledge that we are actually procrastinating is a good first step. That means we realize there's something we're pushing aside and maybe we can figure out why.

Second step is to forgive ourselves or, as he put it, "unjudge" ourselves for not doing the task sooner or letting it get out of hand so that it's overwhelming. We're human! (That step will be a journey for me. I can't help but think negatively about myself any time I look at my office a.k.a. Scrap Cave a.k.a. Oh My God Room. I don't want to be my parents when it comes to clutter chaos, yet here I am.)

Third step is reframing how we're thinking about procrastination. It is actually a good thing we are taking time to figure out how to address this. It's good to consider the emotions involved instead of just thinking about it as "poor time management."

When we sat at our tables, we discussed his suggestions for resolving or overcoming procrastination. My favorites that I feel I could apply are:

Baby steps: Break the task down into smaller segments so you can actually feel some productivity and sense of victory. We'll get to the WHOLE thing eventually.

Get rid of distractions: If you're on your phone for a minute, you're probably on it for an hour. How much time each day does this take away from tasks that need to be done or, more importantly, here-in-the-now time with loved ones?

Meet your future you (I love this one): Develop a relationship with your future version of you. What can you do today that your future you would thank you for?

It wasn't necessarily magical advice. I just needed to hear it today. And since hubby's out of town, I did the "not as overwhelming as I thought" task of cleaning out the fridge for garbage day tomorrow. Simple: Check expiration dates on things and toss as needed. 

Now I just need to assign little baby step tasks for a few other things. 

P.S. If you want to sign up for Paul's amazing weekly inspirational email, sign up here. It's always a great way to start your Monday! 

Close Encounters With Book Club

Well we finally had book club tonight and could discuss the book Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs by Luis Elizondo. 

As I mentioned previously, we don't often do nonfiction and I never would have thought to pick this one up. But it was fascinating so I'm glad we did! 

We met up at el Mezcal and talked about what we used to call UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) but now label as UAPs – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. These are unexplained objects or phenomena observed in the air, sea, or space that display unusual behaviors or performance characteristics not attributable to known technology or natural causes. In other words, they do more than just fly!

While the book was somewhat focused on how the U.S. Government has known about dozens of these encounters and has not shared with the public, there were a few fiction-turned-nonfiction moments to talk about too.

Like people – with either healthy intuition/perception or a Cherokee heritage (not kidding here) – are more susceptible to have an interaction with or receive an implant from one of these UAPs. This book just touched on so much of so many things.

Good meal and good discussion. Now hopefully I can quit overreacting to strange lights and sonic booms!

Close Doesn't Count

The good news is that both hubby and I made it to church and sung in our choirs and coughing wasn't an issue! About time.

The bad news is that some things didn't go quite as we wanted after that.

I've been batting a thousand at BINGO this fall. Two wins in two sessions. But today this was the closest I got with one to go during Ring Around The Free Space.

There goes my streak! The only saving grace (besides having fun with my BINGO babes) is that no one won the Progressive Jackpot in the last coverall game so that'll be up to close to $4,000 in November! I'll just keep crossing my fingers!

The other negative, of course, is that while I was betting the odds, my Vikings were just odd. Ugh. I hate losing by one score! But since I didn't watch it personally, maybe the dirty Eagle were just stinkin' good. I have no excuse.

Unrelated... My undefeated Swedish Chef Mafia fantasy football team is sitting at a 99% chance to win. So there's that.

The WIN though is that I took a few pictures of fall colors yesterday. Because today we had so much wind the trees are quickly turning naked!!

And Jim was on the mission to bag them up! We may need one more round in about a week, but that's fine. This is the only case today where "close to being done" actually counts.

The Leaves Are Always Orange-r...

It's one thing to be envious of the green grass on the other side of the fence. But sometimes in the fall, we swear our neighbors' trees are way more orange, yellow, red, etc, than ours ever will be. I learned today that's not always the case...

Today was a gorgeous day and I was so excited to check out the TriNorse Ski Club's Fall Colorama especially because our neighborhood and everywhere around us was popping with color!

Well, a couple things weren't part of my plans. First of all, I couldn't get to the club road because there was a "bridge out" on Highway 13. So I thought I was taking a detour but ... because our GPS doesn't always know better, I ended up transversing down a mile of a muddy UTV trail that was once marked as a normal road, I'm sure. I just yelled and prayed that whole time that I wouldn't get stuck somewhere! Knowing full well I'd need a car wash after that.

Disclaimer: No photo because I was literally zig-zaging my way through that. And made it, thankfully.

The Colorama event at the ski hill was amazing. They had live music and vendors outside and raffle baskets and a chili contest inside.

As I boarded the UTV to ride up the hill I kind of forgot until I got up there that I was afraid of heights. But there was more to go.

Yup. Like a lot of steps up and that led to the ski platform – and one more platform beyond.

In the end I decided my love of leaf-peeping trumps my fear of heights! Not the easiest of things to do.

After we got down to ground-level, boy was that Pumpkin Bar good! I also am waiting to hear if I won any basket raffles!

After that, I of course had to head straight to the car wash for that UTV mud...

It seemed good until I checked in a parking lot and realized that UTV mud found a place to stay.

I'll get rid of it eventually!! The actual worse thing that happened today was me realizing all the brilliant color is in my neighborhood! Why did I even leave?

I'm pretty sure I noticed. But as usual, thought maybe a ski-high view would beat a front deck view.

Trust your autumn instincts!