Photo Freedom

I am very excited that Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom class starts today. Stacy has revamped her LOM (Library of Memories) workshop, and is now teaching a new version called "Finding Photo Freedom". She has generously invited all of her former LOM students to participate in her new class for free. I love Stacy's teaching style and her positive attitude. I am looking forward to diving back into my own LOM system and continuing on my personal journey to photo freedom.

2011 Wellness

We are almost half way through the year so I thought it was a good time to assess how I was doing on my wellness program. I'm afraid to report it is not going very well and there are some areas in my life that need improvement. This rainy June 1st day is a good a time as ever to pull myself up by the bootstraps and make some changes to better my life and the life of those around me. Rather than dwell on how I've failed, I want to focus on how I can do better:

• Emotional: Be the best person God wants me to be (lately I'm a wreck and think I can't do anything right)
• Intellectual: Keep current with my continuing education (once again I have let this slip away)
• Physical: Move more and eat better (I have not been to the gym since 2010, and the carbs are getting out of control again)
• Social: Call friends more often just to say hi (I've been so busy with the remodel I haven't had time to go out with friends)
• Environmental: Consider some "greener" resources in our kitchen remodel (I am open to thinking outside the box on this one, maybe granite is not the way to go)
• Financial: Shop from the pantry and freezer before purchasing something from the grocery store (throwing away food that has sat too long is not financially responsible)
• Spiritual: Be on time for church (I can't remember the last time I was in church before it started)

It feels good to reassess and have a plan. 

Meet Molly

January 1st we drove down to Salinas and adopted a retriever/lab mix puppy named Sadie. Since our next door neighbor’s dog is named Sadie we decided to rename her. After much discussion between us and the kids we decided on Molly.

Big Idea Festival

The Big Idea Festival starts tomorrow at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  13 days of project and layout inspiration from the fabulous teachers at BPS.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Happy Happy Everything!

We are looking forward to going to Charlie and Lindsey’s house for Easter dinner. I am going to take my niece Tammy’s carrot cake. Such a treat after dieting for over a month and a half. But I will only have a sliver of a piece. Just enough to say ooohhh that was yummy!

Tammy’s Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 ½ cups oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 tsp. soda
• 1 8oz. crushed pineapple including juice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 ½ cups chopped nuts
• 1 cup raisins cut up
• 3 cups coarsely grated carrots

Directions:

Beat eggs until thick. Add oil gradually. Beat well. Sift all dry ingredients and add to egg and oil mixture. Add pineapple and juice. Add vanilla, nuts, raisins, and carrots. Bake 350 for 50-60 minutes in a 13x9 inch pan.

Frosting:

• 1 8 ounce cream cheese at room temperature.
• 1 cube (½ cup) butter or margarine
• 1 box powdered sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla

Beat until spreading consistency. Frost cake when cool.

 

 

 

LOM Clipboards

Here is a photo of my Library of Memories (LOM) Clipboard. I made the large one last year to hold my LOM assignments. I made the small one this year and it holds my Digital Work Flow for LOM.

This is the checklist I am using for my Digital Work Flow for LOM. I’ve tested it a couple of times and it seemed to work. Yesterday I tried to test it on some recent pictures and it failed in the second step. Although I’ve been dragging and dropping my new pictures to a DVD RW with no problem, suddenly Windows 7 doesn’t want to do it anymore. First claiming that I was out of space (I had a couple of gigabytes left), then claiming that the DVD was bad. So possibly the RW DVD is a bad idea. My daughter says I should have bought a MAC and I’m starting to realize that my daughter is smart! I sort of threw my hands up and haven’t proceeded with the steps on my latest photos.

The other thing I’m working on in Library of Memories are my category drawers. I finally gave in and am in the process of taking out my non acid free Mead dividers and putting in my acid free dividers that I bought from Archival Methods. A time consuming step but one I will be happy with in fifty years when my pictures have not been ruined. Of course I won’t be around then and not sure which of my descendents will care. But I am doing the right thing. Right???

Here is my People we love category drawer. Note the red dividers are for the main categories and they match my red album which matches the red ribbon on the handle. I am starting to love color…thank you Stacy Julian!

I had a lot more pictures of category drawers to share but the SD card was not in the camera when I took the pictures so…lesson learned!

My word for 2010 is Listen

Main Entry: 1lis·tenPronunciation: \ˈli-sən\

Function: verb

1 : to pay attention to sound

2 : to hear something with thoughtful attention : give consideration

3 : to be alert to catch an expected sound

— lis·ten·er \ˈlis-nər, ˈli-sən-ər\ noun

Musings on a Thursday afternoon

Life has seemed a whirlwind. I have had some virus ever since I got back from Europe on November 5th. My husband says I am not allowed to world travel anymore if I am going to bring home viruses. This week I am on a second round of antibiotics and hope that this will cure all. I feel like I have been on an alternate planet. Somehow in the midst of not feeling well, we celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Thanksgiving was small with me my husband and my mother in law. We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with some store bought modifications. Everything was tasty and it was just fine that certain things were not homemade. Might I say that the Trader Joe's stuffing mix with a few things added in was delish.


It is occurring to me now that I should have written down what I added so that I could replicate it next year. Many people think I do things like that. But the reality is I am as scatterbrained as the next person. I am recalling onion, celery, carrots, and sausage. 



We spent over $100 at Lucky and got a free turkey this year. It was thirteen pounds and perfect for the three of us, left overs and we made stock out of the carcass. Actually my husband pretty much made the stock. I stand in the kitchen cringing that he isn't doing it the way I do it. But in reality he is creative and is enjoying cooking since he retired. His stock turned out fabulous.

The other thing that made me cringe was the idea of canned cranberry sauce. My frozen cranberries didn't fare too well and we had to throw them away. But guess what? In a pinch Ocean Spray Cranberry sauce is pretty darned good. Didn't doctor them up. Just opened the can and threw them in a bowl and called it done.

 Now let's talk yams/sweet potatoes. We didn't have them this year. A comment was made that they weren't missed. Well, I missed them. Am I the only one? When I was little I liked the sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top. When I got married I LOVED my mother in laws glazed sweet potatoes. As we all got older my mother in law switched to a mashed sweet potato with orange zest. While not as delightful as her glazed sweet potatoes, they are healthy and yummy at the same time. I think next year I will try these Mashed Sweet Potatoes With Orange Essence from the Food Network. But, no matter what recipe I end up with, I will definitely not omit the sweet potatoes!

The gravy was easy.  My mother in law pre makes turkey gravy before the holiday. She purchases turkey wings and makes it from those. I'm not sure how she does it but it is always great and perfect.

To round out the meal we had mashed potatoes, salad and pumpkin pie. Do you want to know one of my secrets? It is Pillsbury Pie Crust. I'm sure it is not as flaky as grandmas, but it is super easy and pretty tasty. And I love the fact that I don't have flour everywhere when I make a pie!

So here it is January 7th and I am musing about Thanksgiving. That is because my brain hasn't kept up with the passage of time. Somewhere December came and went. I have lots of thoughts about December and Christmas and the wonderful time we had with our family. But I will save those thoughts for another day.