We were in Chicago a little over three weeks, and drove all the way home yesterday. So very grateful for dry roads; the only challenge was fog through all of Indiana, again near Cleveland, and very dense fog in Erie. Nothing that really slowed us down, and if the weather forecast is right, we made it home just in time. A winter storm watch starts tonight at 10:00 and up to six inches of snow is forecast by noon tomorrow.

Although I’m already missing everyone in Chicago, I’m glad to be home. It’s taken most of the day to get things semi-organized, get groceries, run errands, and pay bills. By the end of the week, I hope to be back into regular routines, and to have started another purge of my studio.

Right before I left Sarah’s, I had another chance to visit with Alexandra from Art, Scrap, and More, who invited me to lunch. If you know anything about Alexandra you know that in addition to beautiful card making and scrapbooking, she is a fabulous baker. We sat down to a lovely (and very elegant) lunch of quiche, salad, a glass of wine, and fruit for dessert.

It was delicious, and once again, we had no trouble with conversation, sitting at the table for nearly two hours! Another distinct pleasure was meeting her daughter, Gabrielle, who kindly took our photo (much better than the selfie we attempted in September.)

You can imagine that the pile of mail was a bit overwhelming after being away three weeks. 

I sorted it last night before I went to bed, and opened any bills, but the pile of catalogs will have to wait a few days before I’ll get to them. Today I opened personal mail, and the packages. Among the happy mail was a New Year’s card from Rinda, and a stamp set I purchased from My Favorite Things. (Another set for grandchildren. I have one card in mind already!)

Hoping to be back creating very soon as well. Waving to Sian and other Monday Memo Makers! 

Just a quick Memorandum Monday post, waving at Sian and friends!  I’m hoping to return by the end of the day with my Five in Five (actually on the 5th!). Have to wait for it to get light first. I had a busy weekend. Tracy’s been down with a nasty respiratory infection, so it took most of the weekend to get the house decorated. As usual, I made a run to The Garden Factory for flowers . . .

and ran into this cutie who was there with her family to find a tree.

I left Matt and Betsy and the girls after they found their tree. They were off to let the big girls do the rides. The Garden Factory has a huge indoor green house that they turn into a winter playground for kids during the holiday season. Typically Tracy would have gone with me, as they have a huge model train display as well.

So what was new? Saturday night we went out to dinner with friends. Tracy wasn’t sure he’d be up to it, but he was and enjoyed himself. It’s called The French Quarter, and specializes in cajun cuisine. I had Shrimp Etouffee for the first time, and it was fabulous. But the unexpected pleasure was live jazz. We had the nicest time!

Yesterday I was up at 4:40. Usually when I can’t sleep, I stay put and rest, but there was so much on my mind, I just got up. It made for a very. long. day. The good news is I got a lot done: the 2017 calendars are not only created, but printed (23 sets of them), 90% of the Christmas cards went in the mail, a huge pot of minestrone was cooked and will be ready for dinner tonight as well as two good sized containers for the freezer, and while I was out doing test prints for the calendar, I picked up two red pillows for our couches at $10 apiece with a good coupon! House is decorated. I love my house, but especially at Christmas. This week is particularly busy, but next week my class will be over, and the calendar looks like I might actually get some scrapbooking and baking done. Here’s hoping your week is wonderful.

We celebrated the life of our friend, Bob, this weekend. It was a beautiful and meaningful service. Tracy was one of three speakers. He reflected on their 22 years of hiking through the backcountry in the Adirondacks which brought smiles and tears to our eyes. Later we gathered together to share stories at a local restaurant. It was a lovely tribute to a kind, generous, and loving man. He will be missed. Tracy found several photos of Bob taken in the Adirondacks. My favorite is of the two of them, taken many years ago.

Here’s the card I sent to his wife and daughters, all dear friends. I combined PTI’s “Splits: Best Wishes” and “Inspired Faith” along with the die from the latter set. A few tiny pearls finished it off.

And the inside:

Sunday afternoon we attended an “apartment warming” party for my nephew. He has some developmental disabilities, but with the help of his mom, stepfather, and support team he has moved into his first independent living apartment. Marc drives and holds down a job, but has never been on his own. It’s a huge change, and he’s alternately excited and apprehensive. The party was in the apartment complex’s party room, but he proudly took anyone who was interested on a tour of his apartment. It’s a great space, and I hope he’ll be successful in making this huge transition. He made chocolate keys for everyone as party favors.

The message reads: “The key to happiness is friends and family like you.”

Then after supper, I took my camera outside to see if I could capture a photo of the Super Moon. It’s supposedly the largest and brightest moon we’ve had since I was born. I was too lazy to set up a tripod, and in retrospect wished I’d taken a tripod to a better location, but got a decent shot handheld (and then cropped.)

According to Honoré, we won’t see another one for eighteen years, and if we weren’t having company tomorrow night (supposedly even a brighter, bigger moon) I’d be off with my tripod. But I’m happy to have captured it. 

Waving to Sian and other Memorandum keepers. Hope you have a great week!

Waving to Sian and the Monday Memorandum folks recounting weekend adventures and things learned.

The weather was pretty awful all weekend. After being spoiled for so long with warm, sunny weather, we were inundated with rain and cold winds. Friday was particularly dreadful. The rain never stopped all day, and the wind was so strong you had to fight to keep the umbrella right side out! Friday, however, was saved by our very first charity event. We regularly donate funds to several local organizations, but we’ve never attended a fund raiser before. This one was held at City Hall downtown, and the first floor and second floor balcony were filled with tasting stations from local restaurants, bakeries, wineries, breweries, and distilleries. It was held to raise money for Cameron Ministries where I volunteer twice a week in the after school program. I was delighted to see it so well attended.

Saturday was a bit better since the rain was intermittent, but it was still very windy and chilly. We were supposed to go to the Finger Lakes with friends, but they backed out. We decided to go to our favorite Amish market just north of Seneca Lake and to the Outlet Center where we both picked up a few new things. We treated ourselves to lunch at Ventosa Winery on Seneca Lake where I had the best escarole and white bean soup I’ve ever had. They have a fabulous view of the lake.

So what did I learn this weekend? Well, I started an online class with Ali Edwards two weeks ago called “Hybrid.” I’ve been having this ongoing debate with myself about whether to stick with hybrid scrapbooking or to go digital with my Project Life pages. In September, I finished Cathy Zielski’s class,”Scrapbook Your Year,” where she documents every month digitally and makes a photo book each year. I see real advantages to that system, but I can’t quite give up the paper. So I’m going to stick with hybrid for 2017 at least. 

The best thing to come out of Ali’s class so far is her system for organizing digital supplies. Despite the fact that I’ve been primarily a paper scrapper, and only in the last year or so a hybrid scrapper, I had accumulated a HUGE supply of digital files, most of which I downloaded for free over the last 7-8 years. Her system of organizing by theme made so much sense to me, and in about 4 hours time, I had organized my digital files, and reduced them by about 75%. The 25% I kept are ones I’ll use (and most of them I paid for.) Each category of digital supplies (brushes, kits, templates, etc.) has a set of themed subfolders. The themes vary by supply based on what I have.

Once that was done, I tackled all my Project Life cards, and organized them the same way, reducing them by about the same amount.  Finally, I did the same with my embellishments and stickers, filing them in the same clear envelopes I use to store my clear stamps. The charity shop is getting two shopping bags of goodies later this week. 

This weekend I learned just how effective it is. In just one afternoon, I finished four months of Project Life pages with the filler and journaling cards and embellishments all in place. It was so easy to find just the items that might work out for a given page. A couple of years ago, Ali wrote in a blog post that the fewer supplies you have, the easier it is to make decisions. That motivated a huge clean-out two years ago, but I still had (and have) way too much stuff. Once my class at the University of Rochester is over, I plan to tackle my craft closet again, and make similar changes there. And once the sun comes out long enough to photograph them, you’ll begin to see some Project Life pages once again.