first Saturday of May

The first Saturday of May is National Scrapbook Day and the Kentucky Derby. I decided to combine the two so I brought the card table into the living room.

That's the winner, Animal Kingdom. Too bad his original jockey got hurt before the race -- he could have been a part of history!

Remember when we went to see the Pauson House? We also got to go on a tour of Taliesin West and I picked up a Frank Lloyd Wright glass design stencil to use on my scrapbook pages. During the tour I learned that the architects in training there only sharpen their pencils with pen knives. So I used a pencil to trace the stencil onto my layout. I also learned that Mr. Wright liked expansion and compression, so throughout the Taliesin West house we were bending down and straightening up. I tried to line up my photos on top in a bending down and standing up pattern.


I used letter stickers that looked like burnt wood for the title. Morbid, I know.

The first Saturday of May is also Free Comic Book Day, but I didn't have time to fit in a trip to the comic book store with everything else going on!

The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg

I started reading The Year of Pleasures on April 10th which was Do Nothing But Read Day on LibraryThing, and the theme of the group I was reading with was First Birthday. I chose The Year of Pleasures because it went with the theme and is a book from my To Be Read Challenge list (it's been on my shelf since 2/10/08).

I did more than read on April 10th (don't tell!) so it took me longer than a day to read it. I've been putting off reading this book because I thought the author was the same woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love which I didn't like, but that's Elizabeth GILBERT. My bad. Also it's about a woman whose husband has died and I have been trying not to read books with dead husbands. This book wasn't overly sad though. The widow gets in her car and drives until she gets to a town she feels she should live in. The citizens and her long-lost college roommates help her put her life back together as she tries to make sense of the little notes her husband left her to find after he died. I liked this story because it reminded me of The Mitford Series by Jan Karon, where one person's problem is another person's solution.

My favorite quote:
There is a story about a Navajo grandfather who once told his grandson, "Two wolves live inside me. One is the bad wolf, full of greed and laziness, full of anger and jealousy and regret. The other is the good wolf, full of joy and compassion and willingness and a great love for the world. All the time, these wolves are fighting inside me." "But grandfather," the boy said. "which wolf will win?" The grandfather answered, "The one I feed."

May the fourth be with you.

Always.

P.S. Shotgun-riding Chewbacca dog is from blastr.

this length of antler is very "in" right now

my favorite car

This month at These Are a Few of My Favorite Things the challenge is to choose any of their past themes to scrap. I chose my favorite car (Carmione like Hermione) because in my school scrapbook I had a page saved to scrapbook the story of when I bought it.

The paper scrap that says Earth Love is a strip I cut off of the bottom of another piece of patterned paper. I was so excited when I found a Prius acrylic stamp and now I got to use it! I also used my library date stamp for the dates. Here's my journaling which I got off of my Myspace blog. Remember Myspace?

6/5/06 Wonder of wonders, my Toyota Prius arrived today!!!

Ooh, it's so pretty and it's like a car from the future.

When I told my class that I was leaving right after school to get my new car they started clapping. It's nice to have my own little group of cheerleaders.

6/6/06 I took my class on a field trip today to the parking lot so they could see my new car! They thought it was very cool (because it is) and there was a general air of excitement.

After going out to my car this evening I noticed it has about 200 little fingerprints all over it now. Pretty cute!

Good Days

The challenge at Scrapping the Music this week is to use "Good Days" by Alain Clark as inspiration. I had never heard the song before and I'm not a super fan, but it inspired me to scrap this 2 year old photo from Chuck E. Cheese's that I've been using as a page holder in my scrapbook. My friend Angi accidentally bought 2 Chuck E. Cheese scrapbook kits (I hate it when that happens!) so she gave me some paper and die cuts to use. Sweet! I was also so happy I got to use my triangle punch to make a banner!

I still have some of the kit left which I can use for the pictures of my nephews which still need to be printed out. Here's a sneak peek because I know you can't wait:

Dolci di Love by Sarah-Kate Lynch

I requested Dolci di Love as an Early Reviewer because I read Blessed are the Cheesemakers, written by the same author, in 2009 and thought it was cute. Dolci di Love did not disappoint.

It all begins with a golf shoe. As Lily checks her husband's shoe size for a birthday gift, she discovers a photo of his other family, the family he has when he is working in Italy. What really stings is that his other family has children, and Lily's marriage is falling apart because of lack thereof.

Once Lily arrives in Italy to cause some drama, the Secret League of Widowed Darners believe they have received a sign that Lily is meant to be with their local hottie, widowed bachelor Alessandro. Through drinking too much wine and baking cantucci at the head Widows flailing bakery, Lily discovers what she truly needs and deserves from life.

I liked that it didn't end in a corny, predictable way even though it's a corny, fun story.

My Ántonia by Willa Cather

I read My Ántonia with my book club but I also get to cross it off my 2011 To Be Read Challenge list (it's been on my shelf since 12/29/09).

This is a beautifully written story told from a man named Jim's point of view as he reflects on his life, starting at age ten when he moved to Nebraska to live with his grandparents after his mom and dad die within a year of each other. The story takes place in the late 1800s when people in the Midwest were pioneers living off the land. Ántonia is a neighbor girl a little older than Jim whose family has immigrated from Bohemia and are struggling at every turn (not unlike immigrants today).

One part that brought back a nice memory for me was when Jim's grandparents sell the farm and move to town. Shortly thereafter Ántonia moves to town as well as a hired girl. "All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living..." I had a friend in college that used to call me "Country Come to Town" since I am a small town girl who is dazzled by simple things. I wonder if my friend got that term from this book?

Although Ms. Cather mastered creating imagery with words, I felt the story lacked real problem/solution plot. It is a snapshot of Jim's growth from boy to man with Ántonia a symbol of America itself, as she creates life from soil and labors to survive in this land of opportunity.

Happy Earth Day!

Today, being the last day before spring break, was field day. Since my class had to rush outside right after breakfast I only got to mention that it was Earth Day with a brief explanation, saving my lesson for the afternoon.

One little girl from my class didn't need my help explaining. While we were waiting between games she came up to me excitedly and said, "I just made a new friend!"

I said, "Really? That's nice! Who is it?"

Then she walked over to a big tree and hugged it!

How cute! I took her picture and it kind of looks like Tree Hugger by DUDADAZE.

outer space fun

I just heard a story on NPR which said that for the next 2 weeks it will be easy to spot the international space station with your binoculars at night! Go here to find out what time it will be in your area.

P.S. I got the space station photo from LibraryThing. This is the caption: NASA Astronaut Steven Swanson took the Firefly and Serenity DVDs with him on Space Shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission, which lifted off on Friday, June 8, 2007. The DVDs will permanently reside on the International Space Station as a form of entertainment for the station's crews.

How cool would it be to watch Firefly in space?!

little nubbins!

Yellow.

Last Wednesday it rained and I knew I had a yellow day coming up. Perfect weather for taking pictures of our Palo Verde in bloom!

Close-up (difficult in the wind!):

Thursday was sunny again but the tree was just as pretty:

Green.

I read Anne of Green Gables in high school and LOVED it. I keep planning to reread the series but have never gotten around to it with all the new and exciting books getting in the way.

I liked the movie too. When I was a teenager Richard Farnsworth (Matthew) was the grand marshal of our parade. Afterward we went to the rodeo and he was sitting in the stands! I went up to him and asked for his autograph and told him I loved Anne of Green Gables. I think he said, "That was a good one." He was super nice.

P.S. Ode to Anne of Green Gables is by elloh.

scrappin in the rain

We got some rain this weekend, perfect weather for scrapbooking!

The first page I made was for Scrapping the Music. Their challenge was to use the song "Hanging By A Moment" by Lifehouse for inspiration. My title for our hike comes from the lyrics: There is nothing else.

I had so many pictures to use which made it pretty easy to put together.

At Screen 2 Scrap their challenge this month is to use the movie poster from Singin in the Rain as inspiration. As an additional challenge you could add an umbrella and use groups of 3.

The rain inspired me to scrap the pictures from the Pet Walk I went on in February with Caprica. The walk when we got poured on. The rain was not a glorious feeling but raising money for homeless pets was.

For my groups of 3 I used 3 hearts I cut out of the event's brochure and I also used 3 rainbows: 1 on her coat, 1 on a tag that came with some shoes I bought, and 1 by love, elsie.

I was going through one of my inspiration binders and I found a scrapbook page titled "Becoming Bride" which inspired me to scrap my niece Becoming A Bride.

Caprica's impersonation of Captain