December Daily December 7

Today was another quiet day at home. Nothing much happening, nothing getting cooked and no tree decorating yet. Somehow the catchup from trips seems to take so long especially when there is a change of season when we get back. I did have a nice email midday.

The paper on the left was printed from a digital element. When I find that I will post a link if possible.. DHD Merry and Bright which I recolored.

My son will be home for two+ weeks, and this was a good time to use that technique of hidden journaling with his email under the flap. I am so grateful for the teachers on line who share such great idea with us.

Now I have to go out to a meeting in the cold, cold night. I've avoided going out all day but now must bite the bullet. Brrrrr.

December Daily December 6

A very quiet but cold day at home with just laundry and clean up interspersed with a lot of enjoyable computer work. Enjoyable until the printer had one of its periodic fits when printing the page on the right. There went 4 sheets of paper...oh well, it finally let go of its hiccup and printed correctly. That felt very very good.

December Daily December 5

There is still a story to be told for this day when I went to Virginia to give my grandson his birthday presents.  I pretty much had the whole day to myself, as I left himself home to catch up on work so he get to that biking with a clean slate. He said there would be payback, and there was ... Chevys' for dinner!

December Daily December 4

 

Saturday. What Saturday doesn't somehow get filled with chores. I decided to go to the Amish market to get some meat to cook things for him to take on his biking trip. That allows him to eat in and not have to take the time to go out after a long bike ride. So after choosing the stuff, buying the stuff, putting the stuff in the car, unloading the car, I cooked a bunch of the stuff. Made him a meatloaf and got a start on a posole for later.  

Even though he put up the tree for me, not much got done on  decorating since there is still a good bunch of clean up and out from Sebastian.  Sniff. After a hearty pork chop dinner, I watched what I had hoped would be a good movie. Alec Guiness in "Edwin", a rather stuffy, dated piece that seemed taken from a screen play. Sorry Alec, even tho I know England quite well, I found this one a bit yawn inducing.

December Daily Dec 3

Not the best day of my life but a day that had to be.  Our Siamese cat Sebastian was put to sleep. Somehow each December there is a bit of Real Life in addition to all the holiday happenings.

December Daily December 2

Thursday, I thought I was going to an altered box exhibit in Baltimore but oh my. Do I have a story.

I had gone to Hampden first to see a shop there but couldn't find a parking space. So I wandered down to 34th Street and saw the lights a bit early as it was only dusk. By the time I left and was driving down to the Pratt Library it was dark and absolute rush hour traffic. I know Baltimore pretty well but not all the one way streets. It was a bit of a nightmare but I still had time. Finally I got to the parking garage, dashed up to the library and found out...I was a week early.

All was not lost as it was the night they light the Washington Monument and so I had a great evening, all on my own, and saw fire works at a reasonable time. 7:30p.m. Things always work out.

December Daily Dec 1

The album is a small one I think I got at the $ store. Remember I've said Simple and Fun for this year. So far the worst part is getting the itty bitty plugs out of my CropADile when I punch holes. Weird, huh. I'm happy with it and hope it will all fit in the little binder.

December Daily here I come

I'm having a great time making foundation pages and transparencies. Doubling or tripling the layers AND reversing them makes the transparencies glow. Love this one with Cathy Zielske's words.  You could make a whole book with just these - and I do have some 4x6 leftover papers to consider a foundation mini-book for 2011! btw, I always try to find something else to print on the extra part of the paper I won't be using.  The candy strip is made from some downloads called "Ginger Hearts' that I found a couple of years ago. If you recognize the designer, let me know and I'll credit her.

AAM and my December Daily

Oh I have waffled back and forth on this one so much ...hybrid, digital, hybrid, digital...yada, yada, yada. Well at least a lot of yada, ya..in my head. I started some digital layout designs before we went to Italy but then once we came back I realized that I was not going to go to Florida, and that I really might not have enough to fill up digital pages on my own. Perhaps a simpler hybrid design would work.

Then I looked for some transparencies , which have always appealed to me and found very very little in the two big box stores near me. I balked at buying on line and paying so much PLUS postage! when I do have a great digital stash. Ok, I tried printing some myself. That worked out ok, not great but ok. And yes, I did spend a small fortune on the transparencies. Geeze... you'd think they were made of petroleum or some such valuable product!!! Why can some plastic be so cheap and other plastic so frickin' expensive. Anyhow, money spent. I'm over it.

Saturday, I went to my stash of papers which I bought yrs ago thinking I might become a paper scrapper. I easily discarded that idea when I found the digital world.  I cut my 6x8s out and was happy. I decided that I would not print Ali's overlay page but rather use that as a template, and yes do that one each day or as close as I could come to each day.  But I still longed for more transparencies. Oh the heart does get greedy. I figured I could paint some with various designs and do a couple more Christmasy digital overlays, now understanding that I need to reverse the image and also duplicate the layers a few times for more depth.

Now it is Monday, and I am washing the new sheets I got on sale at Target on Saturday. I was impressed by the packaging but as I opened the box today, I did a mental happy dance.

Do you see what is on top of that box? a plastic sheet almost the exact size just crying to be decorated! (btw, that cord is to an electric mattress pad which I adore. Dual setting. Perfect.)

Just in case you wonder, that khaki goes very well with our Ikea duvet cover and shams.

But there's more! As I got ready to put the top sheet, which we do not use, away, I felt cardboard. YES! another item to think about for the book. Maybe this will be the Christmas day page. And I finally noticed the little window in the plastic. I'm not sure how I'll use this but I love it. A real peek into...well into something.

All about me? some days I'm open enough to see the joy and awesomeness in the little things. Today was one of those open heart days.

(Don't know about December Daily? Well here is the motherload of information on Ali Edward's site.)

Art of my Heart

Many little art projects all being made with love around here. These are some of the things I thought about when I was on vacation and it was nice to have a chance to actually put knife to paper, after printing of course! First, here are some numbers printed and being cut. Some red on white, some red on green, some round, some square-ish. Square-ish because I didn't allow enough space between the rows of numbers. Live and learn. All for the December Daily.

Second,  there are the Advent Cards I made for my grandson. I hope it will help his mother focus on the joy in living and help relieve the grief from the death of his sister/her daughter. I backed the white cards with two different shades of green cardstock, textured, and the weight is really nice. I also learned a lot about the do's and don't's of using spray adhesive...

Third,  there is the probable binder for my December Daily album. It was really cheap, and I think it came from Target or the Dollar Store. The stickers came from the $ bin at Michaels. The tag was a free download from Natasha S. Rosenberg.

Finally, there is the location of Shutterfly, where I spent much more time than I would have liked, getting the Hawaii album uploaded and sent off to be printed. However, I had two sale coupons and they expire tomorrow so what's a girl to do.

Done, done, done. How does it feel? Damn good. Now it's time to read books and magazines and get the mind recentered.

My Creative Space

Creative Spaces can be found over at Kirsty's so jump on in if you like on Thursdays! Memes are so much fun.

Most of my creating today was done in the kitchen but you'll have to come back on Saturday to see that one. Do come, because it's a good recipe if the cook says so herself. I finally finished the Christmas album from Ali Edwards' December Daily project with the December 31 page. Lots of fun, and I learned a lot from the process, but I'm glad it's done for this year. Ok for that year!!


So what does it look like now that there's not a lot Being Worked On. Well...

I finally organized my printouts of a great many of my digital elements in that black tabbed notebook. I do wish more of them were obvious by the file name, but I am also sorting them on the computer bit by bit and of course as I use them, I get to know my 'little children' or so it seems.

The computer desk has free space now too as I'm putting more bits away or in the trash. btw, that silver phone 'wants' to have the its #2 transferred to the Iphone so it can go to a battered women's shelter. It's another project To Do.

The crafty table has space to organize all my swapped ATCs into THEIR album tomorrow. If this sounds familiar, it is! That's because there's a trip in the days ahead. I'm getting the routine down I think!I hope.

My Creative Space

Creative Spaces can be found over at Kirsty's so jump on in if you like on Thursdays! Memes are so much fun.

I have been working like mad on trying to get most of my December Daily pages done before this weekend's retreat and I've made good progress on that front. I'm up through Dec 28th! and will work through with Jan 1st and then the Christmas cleanup page. But that's for next week. Phew! Next year, I will have learned enough to make a start before the holidays. Well, I will have learned enough but doing it is always another thing as well I know.

Here you see the pages of the elements/templates/papers I plan to use for some of my pages. I don't have all my digital elements printed out (there would be another ink cartridge or so gone!) but it does help me if I do have them (in a binder) to see what I might like to use. The long list on the right is the list of items that must/could be used for the ATC I was doing. You had to use your partner's choice but then could use others. In the end I enjoyed this one but procrastinated a bit too long, making it harder in my mind than it actually was.

These are the two, the one on the left was done but then I moved the quote a bit under the crow, which moves. (Cool, huh?) Gotta love those glue dots when you change your mind. I still had the 2nd one to cut out etc. They will be up on Flickr later this week, should you care.

And then I have postcards to swap and also some to send to my grandchicks. I have a new glue spray and is it every sticky! I'm afraid it's getting everywhere. I stick the glued postcards under the mat rather than try to smooth them down with my sprayed fingers. I need help here!

And that's been my creative week, other than downloading a boatload of free digital items. Tomorrow I'm off to a spiritual retreat, but lord is it gonna be cold out! High 23F, and low 9F. Lots of fleece and socks.

Still At It

I do hope to finish up the December Daily album by the end of this month, but it will take some dedication. I truly enjoyed the process and understand how to get myself ready next year In Advance. That still doesn't get a page designed, photos cropped and saved and saved and saved. Then uploaded, then printed. I am getting comfortable with the process and that was a lot of the point for me. I needed a project to work through to learn.

These pages are the start of the final bit...the trip to SC which you have seen in earlier posts, but here's what it looks like for the book. It's good posting them in Flickr because then I document what I do. Otherwise, I tend to wonder...what font WAS that. Tell me you are at least half as bad...please?


The ride that went from a breeze to my thinking Why would we ever choose to take I-95?


The dinner that made it all worth while, plus there was a bed waiting for us in Wilson NC.

A Very Short Night

Boy do I now get how it's easy to stay up late when you are on a roll and things are flowing. Thank all that be that working with templates in Photoshop Elements finally CLICKED with me. Do you remember the woman who said she wasn't a scrapper? Oh I hafta eat mah words. Somehow I realized that working with words & images and doing it digitally has morphed into gasp...scrapbooking. Grateful? oh you better believe it. I was afraid I'd never figure it out or find someone who could show me how to do it on my Mac. Happy Dancin' round the house!!

This one of The Mammogram Day is going to be a hybrid - digital with the mammogram receipt and the good results papers added also.

It was just 4.5 hours of sleep till good old Sebastian woke up hungry. Who misses her hubby most at 6am??? See my hand waving in the air??? Well, just one more day of being on Feline Kitchen Duty. Phew!

Have you had any kind of great Aha! moments this week? I'd love to hear about something that just clicked for you.

Souper Saturday cooked on Sunday

Well the thought was there Saturday and the recipe came out. Then I remembered I was going to be having a big meal midafternoon and really didn't need lunch or dinner at home. Ok. Let's move on to cooking on Sunday and the final result to start.

This recipe came from Jessy (aka the Wicked One) over at GardenWeb. I'm not sure if the Uncle Bill in question is her uncle or not. One of these visits to CA, I'll have to ask Jessy about it. First, my lovelies, you read the recipe. Oh I know, you always do that. Well, I always think I do but sometimes I realize as I'm in the Midst of It that I've kind of skimmed it, not read it. DH would say this is typical of my rush to Not Listen. btw, that binder you see is ALL soup recipes.

I might have chopped the onion and garlic by hand but I wanted to make hummus next so I used the food processor which would then have a little flavor leftover for the hummus.

Saute those babies up, onions first then the garlic for just a tad. No burning!

Add the next batch of ingredients and blend nicely. You can see I used Knorr shrimp base instead of chicken or vegetable as I was adding some crabmeat.

Here is the soup with the dried oregano and pepper added. It was toooo cold to go out and get some fresh oregano when I was starting this but that oregano is a hardy soul and still flourishing outside.

I finished it up by adding about 1/2 cup of crabmeat and a good handful of feta. You can find the whole recipe and my notes here and check out the blender pureeing tip from Chow. This was a perfect Sunday lunch. Now I just need to get some more crab for the leftovers.

My Weather; His Weather

Thank all that be for down comforters. Gonna be a cold, cold night.

In My Car I Have

Well I don't have it yet, and I'm not on the road that much. All my jobs for the prior 20+ years were barely over 1 mile from my home but I am gonna restock the items that left the car during the summer. Here is a guide to Winter Safety that might be especially good for those who have never faced a winter drive - yet. The DC area is always full of these transplants who Never Knew.

original

Trust me, we can get a winter here. Valentine's Day...I place my bets on that one for a Big Storm. You have been warned. It isn't fun being stuck with on 50 or 66 with a bunch of lunatics and who wants to join That Group.

Things You’ll Need:

• Flashlights with extra batteries
• First-aid kit with scissors
• Windshield scraper
• Maps and compass
• Paper towels, tissues, and moist towelettes
• Blankets
• Extra warm clothing and socks
• Gloves or mittens
• Rain gear
• Large plastic trash bags (for impromptu rain gear)
• Gallon-size resealable plastic bags
• Calorie-dense nonperishable food (e.g., energy or granola bars, nuts, pemmican)
• Pocket knife
• Bottled water
• Waterproof matches
• Newspaper/wooden shims (to burn for melting snow)
• Metal container such as a clean can (for melting snow in)
• Collapsible shovel
• Jumper cables
• Tow rope
• Bag of sand or nonclumping kitty litter (for traction)
• Red bandana or other brightly colored cloth (to make a distress flag)
• Small amount of cash (e.g., $20)
• Large permanent marker
• Bar of white soap (to write on interior of car windows)
• I add...if short people are part of your daily drive, I'd add munchies, diapers, good boots or at least loads of plastic bags and heavy rubber bands for their tootsies in the event you ALL have to hoof it.
  

Also...keep cell phone fully charged tho service will probably be &#^@% up in a big storm. Always is.

I'm just grateful that we don't have this kind of weather on a regular basis. Really grateful.

Committed

Since DH and I got married, we have tried to keep our Christmas as a fairly low key season. I knew how much he hated the overabundance (addictive greed?) of some Christmas celebrations we had seen or known. I had certainly enjoyed decorating the house but when we combined furniture, there was less and less room even post renovation.

Finally we agreed that with 6 adult children, their Christmas was their Christmas with no obligation for anyone to travel in either direction. December would be a time we would do something for our marriage, and we have often have gone to CA for a couples retreat. DH does not like cold weather very much but one of our best 'Christmas' trips was to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in 2006. Cold but neither one of minded it. That may be a future repeat!

The tree saga you have read below.

So this year, we were to go to Florida - Marco Island (Marriott Preview) and then Miami for his conference. However my lingering cold and our inability to get a cat sitter led me to decide to stay home and have a Quiet Week. His gift to me is time and space. We will go to Hilton Head for New Year's and hope for some warming up there.

So with all this free time ahead, what's a good blogger to do? Not only sign up for NABLOPOMO but also for Ali Edward's December Daily AND Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas. This is sounding dangerously like I'm becoming a scrapper but...I'm committed.


For me these are not three different things, but one way to continue to document how I Cook My Life. I may not have an album like Shimelle's above with lots of bought goodies including a string of pearls, and it may not get done even in December, but it will be fun, and it will keep reminding me how good my life is and how many blessings I do have. Sharing the love...isn't that Christmas?