UPDATING!!!

I am in the process of trying to restart this blog again. Hope to have it done soon!

...i'm still in here...somewhere....

So I was invited to guest-host a scrapbook challenge this weekend at Skrap N' Chat, and looking over my post I noticed my blog link was still in my signature. It's been over 2 years since I've posted here. If you have me on Facebook, you'll probably notice (or not) that I post maybe 2 or 3 times a year, always claiming I'm going to try and post more. It just never happens. I get into this introverted thing where the longer I haven't done something (posted on Facebook, blogged, called someone on the phone), the harder it gets for me to do it. So if you haven't heard from me in ages, chances are I've probably thought about you, and miss you, and am just too socially awkward to do anything about it!

Partially it's the sssllllllllooooooowwwwwness of this laptop I've been using. I just took me an hour to post a scrapbook challenge, mostly because of waiting for pages to load...and all morning to prepare images for it. You may have noticed my last post was about me getting full time overnights. I still have those, and though it's been good financially, it's been a killer on the spare time and with so many creative ideas on the go, I have to pick and choose what to invest my time on. A slow laptop kills my motivation for online activity.

That said, I miss my scrapbook forums. I miss scrapbooking in general. I haven't done much of it since 2011 because I really haven't been in the mood. 2011 may have STARTED well, but it ended pretty lousy with losing my mum to cancer, and it's been hard to get motivated to think about scrapbooking since then. Like how do you reminisce on fond memories when you're feeling so sad...and how do you not let that show through in your layouts? Even if I managed to pull it off, I'd still remember how I felt when I was scrapping them. Take this layout:

Minutes after I finished it, I got a not-so-nice call from work. Now when I look at that layout, it reminds me of that lousy phonecall. I wish I didn't get so emotionally attached to my creative stuff.

Anyway, I'll try to cut off this rant here and say I've thought about blogging again too. The slow laptop is an issue, but maybe...just maybe...I can post like this every few months or so and actually tell people when I update, then who knows? Maybe it'll pick up once I get started. We'll see. Thanks for checking in :)

2011 is off to a fantastic start

And I mean that seriously. I just found out yesterday that as of January 23rd I am going to full-time nights at work, in my regular house, for the next year, and I couldn't be happier. Perhaps it seems anti-climactic considering how excited my cryptic Facebook update was yesterday, a level of celebration women normally reserve for announcing their newly discovered pregnancy or recent lottery win, but this is a big change for me in the right direction. Granted I was already happy at work with my part-time rotation and frequent on-call shiftwork, but this will bring consistency into my life, not to mention weekends. I love my regular house and am happy that for the next year my shifts will be all there. Except for the days I get moved (and I'm sure it'll happen. That's what I get for being feeding tube and diabetic trained).

So now the biggest challenge is re-booking my vacation time with only 2 months before Disneyworld. Hopefully they'll be able to work something for me, considering I had my original vacation time booked way in advance, but my hours are a wee bit different now and I'll need more of them off. But like Don always says, this is a high class problem. If my new awesome job conflicting with my Disneyworld vacation is the biggest of my worries, I really have nothing to complain about in the grand scheme.

Many scrapbookers adopt a new "word of the year" in January. I like to see where the year goes before choosing a "theme" word...some of mine have been Create, Inspire, Balance and Harmony. Last year's was definitely Gratitude...and I would like to start out this year with a lot of it. I have been praying about this position ever since I heard the regular person was thinking about leaving, but didn't want to make it one of those "give me what I want" prayers. I knew I would be a great fit but am always uncomfortable acknowledging that I'm the best at anything even when I actually might be...it feels like setting myself up to be proven a phony. So I prayed that things would unfold they way they're supposed to and for no anxiety regardless of what happens. It's just so nice when God's plan works out they way you were hoping your own would.

If anyone is out there, thanks for listening and letting me share some of my joy with you. Have a blessed 2011 and may your hopes and wishes be made possible in it.

Christmas Memories: let's wrap up the old millenium

96: Christmas Eve church service


97: The year I met Don


98: First Christmas as a married couple


99: I never did find that picture I was looking for....

Christmas Memories...catching up on the early 90s

Yep, missed a few days again. Yep, night shifts.

So today I will cover 3 years at once. Though there is no shortage of memories, they were all of the teenage variety and involve ex-boyfriends and other such drama which I didn't really wish to include in a decade-spanning Christmas memory album. Which created a nice opportunity to do a few of those fun-to-make design-based pages where the focus is more on the style and doesn't require much journalling if any.



1993. Here's my brother and me, who had enjoyed for many years getting up in the middle of the night to see what Santa had left. This year was no different, nor was getting up early on Christmas morning, but it was around this year that it actually started making me tired. As far as I can recall. I do know this was the first year I consciously opted to take an afternoon nap on Christmas day. I guess the drive to Toronto had been helpful in that respect, when we were younger.



I'm happy with how this one came together so easily yet so effectively. It was a happier year all round, but most of the festivities took place at my ex-boyfriend's house (where this picture was taken) so for future-friendliness I made it simple.



1995 was a peaceful Christmas. My mum and I had started going to church shortly before, and had joined the choir, and the spiritual inspiration was still young and fresh in my heart after years of teenage blues. Maybe that's why this page is mostly blue. I love how the sun shines through the window...makes you wanna sing Joy To The World or something. Actually, this was the only picture I had of Christmas 1995. But I still like it.

Christmas Memories: 1992

I love using my title as my journalling.

I also love not having an 80s haircut anymore.

Christmas Memories: 1991

Grade 8. My family had this tradition for a few years of eating dinner out on Christmas Eve, and in 1991 they booked us at an overpriced and overrated Chinese buffet because there was karaoke there, and I liked to sing. It would have been my first time at karaoke, and then when Christmas Eve rolled around I got a cold and had totally lost my voice. Very heartbreaking for a 14-year-old, made worse by having iceberg lettuce and saltines for dinner, which appeared to my then discriminating tastes as the only edible-looking food the buffet had to offer.

Christmas Day was enjoyable enough, with a few surprise gifts and a lot of delicious goodies. There were a few pictures, but my cold had left me looking pretty lousy in all of them, to say nothing of the hideous 80s haircut I was still growing out.

So I opted for a Christmas tree/gift shot, colour-reversed on the computer for effect, and a story that happened a few days before Christmas when we were picking up my dad from the airport. Though my mum might think otherwise, my memories of that night are actually good in hindsight and don't remind me of how crummy I felt on Christmas Eve, so that's what I chose to journal for 1991. There's always a good way to look back on things.