A Pirate's Life for Me

Well I made it safely to and survived Camp Crop-A-Lot without having to walk the plank! Am so grateful I headed to Rosholt on Thursday night because when we woke up Friday morning, our cars were covered with snow with a layer of thick ice underneath. Would not have been a fun morning commute!

My high school friend Julie also went up on Thursday so that was a fun little slumber party.

Every year at camp there is a theme. This year the confirmation letter simply said "Ahoy, Mateys" with some pirate-themed clipart and we all took it from there. Thanks to some friends at work and the dollar store, I had some gear for Julie, my twin sister Raylene, and me to wear.

For the most part it was for group pictures. Not all weekend. That be too much!

Raylene and I as smiling pirates with our plastic swords.

And giving our best "ARRRRGH!" impression. We're not that intimidating, are we?

This is our table group with Becky (scrapbook consultant on left) and Tami and Julie on far right. What a blood-thirsty lot!

As a group, we pretty much hit our capacity at 40+. How awesome! And most of these scoundrels have been coming for years like me!

Of course it was not all swash-buckling fun and games. There was more scrapbooking than sleeping, that's for sure. Always the case. And as usual, I overestimate how much I'll get done. 

My goal was to finish 2018 family  chronological album and start 2019. I did not finish 2018 and have several pages to go. In the end, I want to be happy with my pages, though. So if I spend too much time putzing, I won't feel bad. 

I captured a few random page pictures....

This is 100% Sylvester in love with Jim... crawling in his clothes, watching him mow the grass, and waiting for him to open his office door!

Our preparations for our trip to Scandinavia!

Just a glimpse of our scandi-hoovian sisters' trip to Norway and Sweden. I have a pretty thick digital scrapbook already done on this trip!

It just happened I was working on nephew Colin's win pages on the same day it was his birthday!

This might be my favorite. The page representing Carter and the boy os 465 (Division St.) moving into their first college house. Cheers!

Today it took a minute to brush off our cars, etc., in the blustery wind and then pack up and leave. But what a great weekend. I just have to figure out when it's legal to go to bed on a Sunday night!

Have a good week, everyone. Make some memories!

Have Trifle, Will Travel

A little change of plans for my scrapbooking weekend. My friend Julie (coming up from Madison) and I are heading to camp tonight due to a forecast change. It looks a bit sketchy for Rosholt tonight and tomorrow. When they add "ice" to the forecast, I shift into precaution mode, that's for sure.

But of course, I still had things to get done after work. Finish organizing (bwaahaa), pack (just finished) and whip together a chocolate-mint trifle for the scrappers! That's the only thing I better not forget!

So for this one, the bottom layer is crumbled brownies, next layer is white chocolate pudding using Kwik Trip Mint Milk, then it's a combo crunchy layer of Thin Mints and Keebler Mint Stripe cookies. Then repeat and top with some whip and Andes Mints – pieces and grated.

I'm 99.9% sure I will not be bringing any home on Sunday!

Gotta hit the road soon. Be careful in the dang non-spring weather!

The Current Version of Fat Tuesday

After organizing a little pre-Super Bowl tailgate potluck at work I kinda alluded to a Fat Tuesday treat buffet. And halfway to work this morning while thinking about singing for Ash Wednesday service tomorrow evening, I realized... shucks. It's Fat Tuesday.

I failed everyone, ha.

What I did say a few times was "Hi, I'm fat and it's Tuesday so feel free to celebrate me!"

Got some chuckles, but no good food. 

I did get some goodies today after realizing Camp Crop-A-Lot is 3 sleeps away and I need to create a delicious trifle by Thursday night bedtime. So I stopped at Festival Foods in Stevens Point and now am down to two ingredients, I think.

But when I got home, I realized I better create a "staging area" for what I have ready for camp so I can figure out what else I have to organize the next 3 evenings.

This is only a fraction of what will be jammed into Black Betty, my compact Honda HRV. But it will all fit and there's a good chance not all of it will be used. Very realistic good chance. Still, that's how we roll in the scrapbooking world. The only thing we'll be giving up for Lent (mostly) is sleep this weekend! 

So happy flipping Fat Tuesday! 

Stuck Scrapbooking Pig

I never paid heed to the phrase "bleeding like a stuck pig." Until I was the pig. And I have to blame scrapbooking. Noooooo.

In advance of Camp Crop-A-Lot in a few weeks, our scrapbooking consultant reached out to see if we needed any product ordered before camp. We could earn tickets for fabulous prizes, by the way.

So I had a feeling I was in need of some tape runners – what we use to adhere paper and photos to the pages. 

I pulled out my main supply cart (yes, it's a thing) and blindly reached in to see if I had any new ones in pages but instead came face to face – or finger to blade – with a paper trimmer cutting blade. Just lying face up, waiting for a quick, very tiny slice.

And it was such a teeny tiny puncture wound to my righthand middle finger, yet I am still bleeding 20 minutes later. Good grief, I had no idea our fingers carried so much blood!

So now this little piggy really needs to cry all the way home so she can order some tape runners without more blood on the stinking computer keyboard.

How is it I am a hot mess every day without even trying. Must be a superpower, I guess.

Doing My Things

Starting your Saturday with Book Club at the coffee shop sets the tone for a really nice day! Glad to see 3 of my girlfriends at least as we discussed a tough book – The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb. A really tough story but a good read. 

Ran some errands and when I got home I started organizing my scrapbooking stuff for camp – a whole 5 weeks in advance. Who am I?!

Then it was time to watch football playoffs. The Bills-Bronco was very exciting. Dang Broncos pulled it off in OT. But my win was almost finishing the rest of the blanket I'm making for a wedding shower. Based on how boring the Seattle-49ers game is so far, I might just finish by halftime.

Feels good to do MY things. And make progress!

Hope you had a good day, too. Bundle up tomorrow!

Chance of Accumulation

Had to get up a bit early today since we had a short choir practice before church since we were off from practices during the holidays and wanted a great performance. Naturally! I was still a bit stuffed up – including my stinkin' ears – but went anyway since I also had to read in church today. 

No one fired me from these two volunteer positions so I guess I did OK.

Our last Vikings game of the season was on TV since, well, we were hosting the Packers. We won, but not an exciting game. And it would have been better for our Draft situation if we had lost. Oh well, SKOL!

After that I switched onto craft mode. Not crocheting today. My big project I INTENDED to attack on my week off was tackling my office a.k.a. Oh My God Room a.k.a Scrap Cave. Which I obviously was too sick and weak to do. But I did make some more progress today.

I have a pile of "to donate" scrapbooking paper that continues to accumulate. It there was something unique, I offered if for fellow scrap friends on Facebook and so far have most of that claimed for. Still have a ways to go.

Why get rid of it? First of all, I will never admit I have "enough" scrapbooking paper or that "I don't need more." But some of this I've had for 20-plus years – a lot were free samples when I edited scrapbooking magazines back in my "best job ever" days – and it's just sat there "in case" I needed it for this page or that. 

And that hasn't happened yet. LOL.

So next step it choosing which "organization" or whatever would really use this stuff. I've been given a few ideas, so I'll see what's the easiest for me. Because if this hoarder-in-the-making is willing to let something go, she better have an easy way to do it!

But speaking of accumulation...

In addition to those icicles hanging from our still sexy soffits (top photo), we have a chance for so much more. I love the color purple but it is never a good thing on radar. It's accumulating right now and we'll have another round Monday night into Tuesday morning – when I actually have to drive into work.

Not fun. Be smart and stay safe, everyone!

Hookin' Away My Saturday

As soon as I woke up and was about to get up, hubby says, "You might as well stay in bed. We're at war." Say what?!

My first thought was "What did he do know?" and my second thought, as someone who avoids all news as much as possible, was "Did we know this was coming?"

No matter the answer to either, I knew I needed a day of distractions. I did watch a little news but then headed into town to Lighthouse to get a few papers for upcoming Camp Crop-a-Lot in 7 weeks since I picked up more photos yesterday and am jumpin' to go!

Then I cleaned my office "aka Oh My God Room" a bit before I earned my chance to relax.

Can't do too much cleaning on a weekend when there are projects waiting in the wings.

I have a wedding shower coming up in the same time frame as camp. The couple has many "sage" colored things on their list so I am making them a blanket that is mostly sage with a strip of white, then multi color for a wide strip, then white again close to the top – and the rest sage. 

I'm liking it. And today I realized I could close my eyes and do a whole row without looking, just feeling. I am a Jedi Crochet Master, I guess! That also means I can head back to the livingroom now and watch a Hallmark movie AND multi-task without even blinking.

Well, I better pay a little attention. This is a gift after all!

And oh yeah, it snowed again today. Stay warm and safe, everyone!

I Don't Care How Pretty You Are

I know the days are starting to get longer now, but today felt like 3 days' long! And that was without leaving the house!

We woke to about 5 inches of snow and below-zero feels. My hubby the winter hero spent the morning nose-blowing and snowblowing here and at his dad's. And I am about a day and half behind him on the winter cold/cough train. So I had absolutely no energy!

What I did accomplish was starting a trifle cookbook (well not really, but I do have 6 recipes done anyway for friends who got trifle bowls for Christmas). 

Then I switched to scrapbooking mode. It took all afternoon but I found and uploaded all my 2018 photos I want to use at Camp Crop-A-Lot in February – but since there are 392 of them they won't all fit anyway. But.... drum roll please... I ordered the prints!! What? I know. Crazy. Still have lots of prep and organizing to do once I get the photos, but this is a great start.

And for my final accomplishment of the day, I wrote a poem.

Thoughts on Winter

Dear, winter:

I don't care how pretty you are.

I still hate you.

The end.

Be careful out there, my friends!

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.

Creatively Escaping the Heat

Saturday was another super hot and humid day. I do love the heat, but I'll admit I don't have the stamina to handle it like I used to. So the first highlight of the day was driving in the A/C to an air-conditioned book fair at Lake Arrowhead. Found three must-have reads because of course that's what they were selling!

Got home and had a surprise Amazon package delivered. Who needs a neon ice cream sign?? THIS birthday girl! I texted Jim, Carter and my twin to see who was responsible for this cool moment of joy on a hot day... and my twin did not disappoint!

I had hoped to photograph the water ski show later, but we got hit by some pretty hard and steady rain in the late afternoon.

Quite a bit in a short amount of time. So I stayed home and turned my attention elsewhere. To Shutterfly, in fact, and their recent text that they had a screaming deal for the weekend. Unlimited free pages AND free shipping.

So look at me finally finishing a vacation album from 10+ years ago!  

I mean I could also make some headway on a Maui vacation from 2016, but I don't think the 5 hours between now and midnight is enough. On the plus side, they do often extend the "unlimited free pages" coupon another day after the holiday. So there's a chance I can start it tonight and have all of tomorrow to scrap away. 

But let's not forget, this was a 5-day weekend with all intentions of "relaxing." Ahhh, decisions... decisions...

Hope you had a relaxing and SAFE holiday weekend!

The Smiling Scrapbook Gods

 

It's always funny looking out at this totem pole at scrapbooking camp. It's like the scrapbooking gods are watching over us!

And they were this weekend. 

I had the treat of having my twin sister Raylene join me for the weekend! We think it's been about 15 years since the last time she did. It was just so nice to hang out, visit, be creative, and have a treat or 2. Of course! By the way, we did not tell each other what we were wearing. She just showed up Friday and we matched!

The theme this year was scrap-iversary since it was the 25th year of Camp Crop-A-Lot and my 20th year attending. Such a fun group!

This weekend I was working on my 2017 scrapbook. Got as far as October anyway. A few favorite pages....

I got home about 3 p.m. today. And it was such a warm welcome! 

I expected it since there was a meltdown starting at camp as the temperature reached 50-some. It was a gorgeous spring day!

And yes, after a well-timed chiropractic appointment, I did get in line at the car wash! It wasn't so bad since people have had several days to take advantage of mild temps. I'm glad to see they're continuing this week. Just one less thing to worry about when I'm headed back to work.

After a 4-day weekend, that's hard enough!

Between that challenge and lack of sleep this weekend, I'll be hitting the hay early tonight. Maybe not until after The Voice though. Priorities.

Have a good week!