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CKC-Buffalo

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Stacy1w

My friend and I spent two hours yesterday with Stacy Julian in her Finish Line Scrapbook class at CKC-Buffalo. It was fast-paced, inspirational, and meant to challenge our perfectionist tendencies when scrapbooking. Both of us are type -A, perfectionist scrappers so it was perfect. We were challenged to finish a scrapbook with 20-30 photos during the class. I almost made it. A little time this afternoon and I should have a 6 X 6 scrapbook of Matt’s high school graduation finished. Here are the rules:

  • sort photos
  • crop to the core
  • limit product
  • skip the journaling
  • assemble without over thinking
  • embellish last–lay out embellishments and limit yourself to the pile in front of you

Stacy doesn’t advocate this approach for all your photos, but it is a great way to finish one set of photos in a short amount of time. “Crop to the core” was hardest for me. I always think about the final size I want a photo, and cropping photos without thinking about the final size made me a tad uneasy. What I found at the end was I ended up cropping some of them even more in order to get more than one photo on a page. For some photos I think an 8 X 8 album would be easier.

We had a great time. Spent two hours at the vendor fair which was much larger this year. I bought a lot of  beautiful paper, but not much in the way of embellishments. In the afternoon we took a Making Memories class and used their tag maker. I was very impressed with it, and I’m sure I’ll own one soon. I need to finish all four of those 12 X 12 layouts. This class, too, pushed me to try some things I might not otherwise try. All in all, a fun day.

Taste of Summer

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The three day weekend was a taste of summer. We had time to relax, get some much needed sleep, visit with family, and get lots of yard work done. One of my big projects was to clear off the overgrown steps that lead from our patio to our lower yard.

Here’s an in-progress shot:

Stepsbeforew

And the finished project:

Stepsafterw

I took some shots of the beautiful flowers on our patio as well. Here’s the first bloom on the hibiscus.

Hibiscusw

And the bloom on our desert rose.

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Four more weeks of school and we’ll have days like this every day. Can’t wait.

Tree Peonies

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Treepeoniesw

Our tree peony is in full bloom. It doesn’t last long, but it is beautiful.

Proud Parents

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It’s hard to believe, but both our children graduated today–one in Georgia and one in New York. Sarah received her Masters of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary after three wonderful years. All her hard work paid off as she received a $4000 Honors Prize. She’ll be applying that toward her program next year at Princeton Theological Seminary where she’ll be working toward a Masters of Theology. Here’s a photo of her and her dad taken this morning.

Sarahtw

This afternoon Matthew graduated from Finger Lakes Community College with high honors. All his hard work has paid off as he found out yesterday he has been admitted to the plant science department at Cornell University where he will be a junior this fall. Here’s a photo of Matt and his mom.

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We couldn’t be any prouder. They have worked very hard to get where they are ,and they deserve every honor!

Happy Mother’s Day

It couldn’t have been nicer.
•Opened some lovely gifts from Tracyand his always thoughtful card.
• Picked Matt up at 8:00 for breakfast at Papa Jack’s and then spent well over an hour at Wayside Nursery. Bought a red bud to replace our dying dogwood tree in front of our house, five huge geraniums for the patio garden, and a new red hydrangea as well as a few other perennials. Matt bought me another forsythia for Mother’s Day and a beautiful hanging pot of purple and white million bells for my birthday. Tracy bought me a lovely shade container garden for our front porch. Always love shopping for plants with these two guys.
• Came home and dug in the dirt. All the new plants are in and several hundred maple seedlings have been removed from various beds around the house.
• Visited with Tracy’s mom and they planted our gift of the biggest New Guinea impatiens I’ve ever seen. Looks great near the front steps of the B&B.
• Had a nice call from Sarah–also a delightful card and a new book of poems by Mary Oliver.
• Went to see Miss Potter which was just a lovely movie–tender, sad, and uplifting–beautiful photography.
• Decided not to open the school bag. Hope I don’t regret it tomorrow.

As Charlie Gibson says each night, "Hope you’ve had a good day."

Time Flies

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I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I posted an entry. I’ve been so busy with school and the Photography 101 class which ends this week. I will be very sorry to see it end. I’ve learned a lot, can use many more features on my Rebel XT, and have so appreciated the constructive criticism I’ve gotten from Barbara Carroll. It’s been worth every penny and then some! I’m in the process of updating the Photo-A-Day blog on the sidebar. They aren’t all from this month–many are from our vacation in April, but I decided to upload them a day at a time, rather than trying to backtrack.

Even scrapbooking has gone by the wayside. I’ve managed to get cards made for all the April/May birthdays so far, and I started a scrapbook for our Kiawah trip. This weekend I finished layouts for the two circle journals I need to send on in about a week, but I completed nothing for the DW 2007 Challenge at 2Peas in April. That’s the first month I’ve missed since I started over a year ago. I don’t think it’s going to change much as I’ve signed up for Cheryl Johnson’s Painting with Light photography course. I’m looking forward to it as well. When I looked through the introductory posts, I was the only one so far from the states. I’m so ready for summer vacation but it’s still a good seven weeks away. Then I’ll have time for all my hobbies!

Weekends are like Rainbows

There have been many quotes I would have liked to respond to from A Fancy Word for Simple, but by the time I get to looking at my favorite sites at night, I’m too tired to write anything sensible. Saturday’s, however, struck a chord—weekends always seem so short.

"Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them."

—-John Shirley

This weekend was wonderful—warm, in the 70’s (haven’t seen that since November!), and sunny. We had to have our photographs taken for the church directory Friday night. I had high hopes of accomplishing quite a bit afterward, but they were running well over an hour behind. We went to dinner and to my mother-in-law’s to wish Bill a Happy Birthday. It ended up being a really nice night, very relaxing in the end—but nothing accomplished at home.
Saturday was better. I went to the gym early and then met my friend Mary. Our favorite stamp store is closing so we went to say good-bye to Linda and to wish her well. I was able to buy almost a whole spool of my favorite black and tan checked ribbon and loaded up on a variety of envelopes as well as one set of journaling stamps. Got all the bills paid, and found a birthday gift for a good friend, cleaned and organized my study, and had time for a glass of wine and dinner on the patio.
Today Tracy and I got up, went to breakfast at Papa Jack’s in Victor, and went to Bristol Garden Center. We bought two 6-packs of pansies for along the front walk, two holly bushes for the hill near the patio, and lots of black mulch. While I planted the pansies and cleaned out the large flower bed, Tracy got the mulch down in the beds in the front yard. We’re way ahead in lawn clean-up. Spent the afternoon organizing the photographs from our Kiawah Island vacation earlier this month and started on a scrapbook/album of the trip. Tonight I worked on next year’s school budget—almost done. So could I use another day? You bet, but it was a pretty productive weekend after all.

Fence

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Her space : My space photo for the day is FENCE. Once again, I’m using a photo from last week’s vacation in Charleston. We do have a fence, but it’s too rainy to take an SLR out in it. So here’s a pretty fence from Charleston (much fancier than mine.)

Fencewword

Bug?

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The Her Space : My Space challenge today was “bug.” No bugs to be found in western NY today–cold rain and now snow. But here’s a lizard I “captured” in Charleston on Wednesday.

Lizardw

Paradise

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“It’s paradise.” That’s Matt’s opinion and none of us are disagreeing. It was a picture perfect day. The guys got in their third day of golf and it was warm enough for me to sit in the sun and read. Tonight after dinner we went for a bike ride. The photo supports Matt’s opinion.

Sunsetw

Daisy

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I’ve been following Her Space : My Space for several weeks and have often wanted to join in. Today’s prompt was daisy and I had one right on the table here. Being on vacation gives me time to take on these challenges, so here’s my daisy:

Daisyw

On Vacation

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We’re on vacation! Tracy and I drove to Charlotte and spent Friday night with friends. Arrived on Kiawah Island yesterday afternoon. Sarah and Adam arrived by dinner and today, my brother Dane, arrived. We’re on vacation and enjoying every minute although it’s too cold to sit on the beach.

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Too chilly to sit but it was a beautiful afternoon for a walk.

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Sarah & Adam

Among the Missing

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I feel like I’ve been among the missing on the blog scene, and in fact, I have. Not because I haven’t ideas for posts, but there’s been just too much on my plate and blogging falls quite a way down the long list. Finally the light is shining at the end of the tunnel. Report cards are done, the spreadsheet with recommendations for middle school math and literacy programs is done, and all the plans needed for after vacation are done. It’s a relief–and the thought of vacation is so exciting–even if the weather forecast isn’t all that one would hope. Aside from school work and getting ready for a week’s vacation on Kiawah Island (our favorite vacation spot), I’ve been trying to keep up with my work for my Photo 101 class. I’m getting more and more comfortable with all the options on my Digital Rebel. This week we were working on depth of field. No pretty flowers or budding trees here so I took a shot of our patio light with my new 50mm/1.4 lens. It, too, has a learning curve, but I know I’m going to love it once I’ve had some more experience.

Patiolightdofw

Tracy has wanted a tree face for a long time, and Sarah and Adam ordered one for him for his birthday. It was nice enough this weekend to put it on the tree beside the patio. Here are two shots of our tree guy:

2treeshots

We leave Friday for Kiawah. Can’t wait. Sarah, Adam, Matt, and my brother will all join us for part of the time and everyone will be there on Tuesday. It’s a rare event to have everyone together and I can’t wait.