#UncomfortableTopic...#DontLikeThisOne

For my journal it was suggested that I place hash tags of the subject matter of my journal entries at the bottom of the pages. That way if I need to find a topic without having to read my whole journal again it would make the process easier. The title to this blog post is the hash tags I came up with for today along with "#pretty" and "#smart".

My journal topic tonight was would you rather be less attractive and really smart or really attractive and less smart. (dun, dun, dun...) I know, a really deep thinker, at least for me. Without revealing what I wrote I would like to show you what was in my head the whole time I was writing:

Yep!! Barbra Streisand!!

This is the scene from Funny Girl where she looks in the mirror and says to herself "Hello Gorgeous". AND she is looking stunning in this leopard print coat and hat. In this movie Fannie Brice is a girl who has grown up feeling less than pretty, as she points out throughout the movie. But in the end we see professionally that she was smart enough to get herself top billing in the Ziegfeld Follies. 

Regardless of whether this portrayal of the real Fannie Brice is accurate or not, the message is clear in regards to my journal topic, really smart wins over really pretty. Though if I dressed like Barbra does in this movie, I would settle for that too. 

Until next time...

Book Readings

I have three pages here on my blog. One is for creative endeavors, photos to share and funny stories of my life. One page is accomplishments I have achieved in the scrapbook realm. (Those of  you who have ever worked on a Design Team for a website you will understand.) The third page is devoted to books I have read for my book club.

I have been a member of the Steele Creek Woman's Book club since 2009. We have members come and go but a core group of us have stayed together all these years. I really enjoy the time I get to spend with these smart, funny, opinionated women. We laugh together, get misty eyed for one another and cheer each other on when someone needs a hug. It has been an experience I have had the privilege to enjoy and be a part of.

Each year our members nominate and vote on books we would like to read and discuss. We throw care to the wind when it comes to the nominations. Any topic is welcome. But eventually we have to vote. And then it gets serious. I honestly look up all the books, make a check off sheet and number the books from 1 to whatever to pick the top twelve i would like to attempt to read. I say attempt because it is not a REQUIREMENT that we have to read the book to participate. But I try.

Anyway, back to page three on the blog. I have noticed that my participation in our book choices has depleted each year. Whether it be because a particular book does not strike my fancy, I just can't get through it, or the dust jacket (do they still have those?) doesn't have an interesting enough graphic, I just can't put my finger on it. So this year I nominated MANY books in hopes that a few would be interesting for me.

I am happy to report a number of books look interesting this year. I am hoping to get through the majority of the list. I can only improve my standing over last year. I read three books from the 2014 list, one left over from the list in 2013 that I never finished but wanted to get through before the movie came out in 2014 and one extra book that looked interesting in the public library. THAT'S IT!!! I think that is the least amount of books I have read in about 20 years.

Here is the Steele Creek Woman's Club book list for 2015:
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America Written by: Mike McIntyre
A Cold Day for Murder: A Kate Shugak Mystery Written by: Dana Stabenow
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen: A Novel by Susan Gregg
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Moloka'I by Alan Brennert
The Cherry Cola Book Club by Ashton Lee
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

At least 9 look good, one is iffy and the other two, well, we will see. Gotta get to reading. 

Until next time...

The Short Cut, Kind Of...

One of the things I like about the book I am using to journal is that the author gives you ideas on how to decorate your pages to give yourself some variety from page to page. Tonight I decided to utilize one of his suggestions. I cut photos from a magazine and added or didn't add scrapbook paper scraps to the pages. I plan on adding additional embellishments as I come across these pages in the journal. But for now, I have the beginnings of 6 pages.  Here's a peek:

 .

Until next time...

A Day In The Sun

My hubby and I have recently been very sick and our pup Dakota has been feeling neglected. At least that is the voice we are giving her sorrowful face whenever she realizes we have to take her outside to do her thing on a leash AGAIN. No running. No playing ball. No Frisbee.

Today she was finally able to run and play in our semi dry back yard. We have had many days of rain and cloudiness this past week and our climate changed for the better. Of course it may be the last warm day we see for a while. I snapped these photos of Dakota not running around as I thought she would do. Instead she was guarding her pumpkin ball, lounging in the grass soaking up the sun.

She must know the cold is coming soon too.

Tonight's creative endeavor was to write a plot line for a short story based on three rolls of the dice. I was provided six characters, six situations and six events that could happen to my character. I rolled the dice to see which parts of the story I scored. My plot line was "On a desert island, a school teacher travels 100 years into the future." Now write a short story.

My short story is four pages long and I kind of ignored the 100 years in the future part. I just made the teacher experience some short term time travel while her husband attempted to rescue her from a rouge fish that pulled her out of their boat while she was fishing. Kind of fun. Very messy hand writing. Now I need to look back at what the other plot lines could have been. But that will be another day.

Until next time...

Inka Mess!!!

I finished my journal entry for today and as I have done each day since Day Two I looked ahead to see what kind of page I needed to create for tomorrow's entry. Tomorrow is the first day we will do a short story prompt. I did not read the prompt as I want it to be fresh when I start to write tomorrow but I know I will need LOTS of room WITH LINES to keep it all straight. Since I am recycling an older journal from three years ago, there was some tea ink on the edges of the pages. I decided to "Inka Gold" it up. And this metallic purple is GORGEOUS!!! Inka is thick and will cover the ink. When it dries it is shiny and if I buff it out, even shinier!!

I am having lots of fun this week trying to spark my creative mojo by making messes and getting dirty. Bring on tomorrow's project!!!

Until next time...

Baking Dots

A scrappy buddy of mine tried a project last year of melting pony beads to make enamel dots for scrappy pages. When you purchase enamel dots, they are rather ridiculously priced and  you get very few in a package. Lynn did a whole post about the "how to's" which I will not repeat here. You can check out her post at Off the Rails Scrapbooking. Here is my process and how it came out.

#1. The lighting in my kitchen a night is NOT wonderful for photos so please bear with me. I laid out my beads on parchment paper and kept them far apart so they did not run together as they melted.

#2. I placed them in a preheated oven at 450 degrees. I started off at 8 minutes and added 2 more in the end. The purple were the first to melt. Next the black.

Eventually I took them out of the oven because my loved ones were sleeping and I was afraid toxic fumes or a fire might occur. And it would be a pain to run upstairs to retrieve them for evacuation. I removed the black and purple from the paper and then set the silver ones back into the hot oven that had been turned off to see if they would melt any further.

#3. The silver ones did not melt. They just cracked and sagged a little. They do look kind of cool, so I will keep them.

 #4. I did wind up with some nice black and purple dots in the end. Those are the colors I scrap more often than others, so I am sure I will use them up quickly. Now whether I will try this experiment again, only time will tell.

Until next time...

Keeping Up and Working Ahead

Day three and I am still keeping up with the journal. I realize this is early in the game, but I am really enjoying the process so far. I like that it allows me to do a little paper crafting as I write. I am trying to use up bits and scraps from former projects. I am using some of my die cut elements that I just had to have, but have not even opened in the past year or two.  And this gives me the opportunity to be messy with paints, watercolors, pastes and such. Here's a peek at tonight's pages, minus the words. The blue bird on the page is a die cut that I have had for at least two years. The banner page is ready for a night I may not have time to be creative.

Until next time...

New Year, New Creative Juices

Tonight I started my new creative adventure. I won't be sharing much of it with you here, but I love the way the page turned out. I have been SERIOUSLY LACKING the mojo juices for about 8 months now. Now that things are settling down at work and home, I hope to get back onto the ball. Happy New Year!!

Until next time...

Our Summer Project 2014

This spring we have begun the process of getting our backyard up to snuff. Our first step before we began anything was to have our fence put around the back yard. We are in a fairly new subdivision which is still expanding. After living here for a year with "the woods" behind us, the lots were cleared. With all this open space and the fact that we have seen a few folks walking through our back yard, we decided the time was here.

After many requests from friends and MOSTLY FAMILY here are some photos to document the event. 

 Here is how we started off: three piles of wood and cement on a nice sunshiny clear day.

 Of course, it rained the night before the work was to begin. So those poor workers had to march around in our damp, yucky, orange clay.

garage side gate

looking into the gate

scanning the mucky yard from the gate

The other side:

You will note that we had to bump our fence toward the house four feet because we did not want our neighbor to bump the fence as he parks his truck about a foot from our property line. We are going to put some bushes up by the "bump in" to also protect our fence a little more.

looking in the gate
neighbors fence is red/orange

scanning the yard from the gate

 Then i went and stood in the middle of the back yard at the base of the hill to photograph both sides gates from inside the fence.

Completed:

In about 30 days we will get the extreme pleasure of painting this fence...

Until next time...

Our Weekend Getaway (Part 3)

In today's posting I will continue the layouts of our trip down the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway. I am creating the layouts as I have time away from work this week. I am hoping to have the whole trip scrapped by the end of today, tomorrow at the latest. I see about 4 or 5 layouts planned for the rest of the trip. Let's see how many I can get done.

The first site we stumbled upon on day one of our travels was Cowpens National Battlefield. The battle at Cowpens was an important victory by the Continental Army under General Daniel Morgan during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War against the British Army led by Banastre Tarleton. After a little research on my part before this posting I discovered that the battle scenes from The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, were based on the campaign at Cowpens. And while the site was not used for filming, it was filmed in York County (our current home). Knowing Health Ledger was hanging out in our parts kind of makes me wish we had been living here at the time of the filming!!! I might have tried out as an EXTRA!!

The battleground was a lovely location. There is a visitor center which houses many replicas of the weapons and uniforms of the soldiers and volunteers who were involved in the battle. There are a couple of videos to watch: we watched one as they were running at the same time in the hour that we arrived. There is also a driving path with markers to point out specifics to the battle field. For local residents there is a walking trail that takes you right through the heart of the property as well as a paved bike trail around the site.

Along The Road - February 2014
Double Page Challenge - Scrap 'N Chat

I love hiding maps from our visits somewhere in the layouts.
Do you see it?

The Girl Scout in me is still loving collecting badges from our travels.
They always make colorful additions to my layouts.

We kept reading and hearing that for a good time and a great meal we should try out a local landmark in Pickens. It was only a mile or two up the road from our  lodgings. We were there on a Friday night which is apparently their "big night", a big fish fry and live music. I don't think either of us suspected what we got. 

Aunt Sue's
January 2014 Sketch Challenge - Scrap 'N Chat

Aunt Sue's Country Corner was a group of log cabins featuring an ice cream parlor, restaurant and three or four little specialty shops, none of which were open when we were there. It was dinner time and we were told that there had been a death in the owners family so perhaps that was the reason things were closed up tight. The fish fry was ok but I am pretty spoiled having Captain Steve's near our homestead. 

There was a blue grass band playing with guitars, mandolin, banjos and a fiddle.  I must admit it's not the style of music I typically listen to but the crowd was clapping at the end of every number. I did recognize a few songs I have learned in church but they sounded quite different on those types of instruments. And in case you are wondering, they WERE playing "Dueling Banjos" as we entered the restaurant. And while they were not quite as funny as Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog here, they did have frog legs on the seafood buffet. (Sorry Kermit)

On Saturday morning we drove into Pickens to find breakfast. We were getting out a little late because we had made a stop near our lodgings at the Table Rock Visitor Center. After a quickie early lunch at Mickey D's, it was after 10:30 a.m.,  and a pit stop to get gas for the car, we started heading back toward the scenic byway. We happened across Hagood Mill Historic Site which houses one of the oldest surviving gristmills still producing grain products. It also has the largest waterwheel in the state and the only one still made of wood. 

Luckily for us, it was also a heritage day. There are a number of buildings on the property that have been relocated here. As such, there were actors completing daily tasks for the era based on the buildings they were assigned to work at. There were bluegrass groups playing music in the cabins. The gristmill was grinding away. The blacksmith was making horse shoes. Even the still was pumping Moonshine. It was a fun place to lurk around.

Daily Grind - January 2014
Double Page Challenge - Scrap 'N Chat

 

Well, I have been scrapping all day and I completed 5 pages just as I suspected. But I still have 4 more sets of photos to scrap from this weekend getaway. So I guess I have four more layouts to complete starting tomorrow. For tonight I believe I am finished. So tune in next time for the last installment in our Weekend Getaway series. 

Until next time...

Our Weekend Getaway (Part 2)

After our scenic drive through the foothills we came upon our place of rest for the evening. I had found an inn in Pickens, SC that was advertising that they were "convenient to Table Rock State Park (just across the street)." Table Rock was high on my list of destinations I had planned for the weekend. They were absolutely right about their location. They were literally across the street from the mountain. It was a beautiful site that we could see from our window.

We enjoyed our stay at the Laurel Mountain Inn. Since we plan on returning to see more of the area, I am sure this will be our planned stop in our next adventures there. Our room was lovely, nice calming shades of blue with sea shell decor. (I will never understand why some folks decorate with seashells when the sea is the farthest thing from the mountain range.) It had a king sized bed and a kitchenette of sorts with a microwave, refrigerator and small sink.  The proprietor, Sherrie, was very nice. She upgraded our room when she found out we were celebrating our anniversary. She even provided champagne and chocolates for us that evening. It was a nice relaxing evening which we took advantage of. We knew we would be traipsing through the forests, up hill and down, in the morning looking for waterfalls.

April Sketch Challenge
Scrap 'N Chat

Until next time...

Our Weekend Getaway (Part 1)

Hubby and I went away for a few days on a "scenic drive" over the Easter weekend. Just one night away, but just the shot I needed to get myself scrapping again. It was our 5th anniversary as well that weekend, so we decided an overnight stay might be nice.

We decided to head over to Hwy 11 in SC known as the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway. After a little research I discovered that there are 35 published waterfalls across a 3 county spread that can be hiked to and enjoyed. I had been feeling like a lump lately from either being cooped up at home or working my tail end off, so we hit the road.

There were many cool and exciting things to see other than just waterfalls. Historic battlefields, festivals, vintage homes, farmer's markets and antique shops are plentiful along the way. There are multiple state parks as well with camping, hiking, and fishing. And at least one vineyard that we discovered.

So today I sat down to start scrapping. I have been having a serious lack of mojo lately. I think it has been about 3 months since I actually scrapped anything. I have had lots of stuff planned, but no gumption to get it done. Well the ball is rolling again.

This is a place along the highway known as Strawberry Hill USA. It is a large farmer's stand with beautiful farm land surrounding it. Across the street is a tractor graveyard of sorts for those who enjoy looking at old farm equipment and a restaurant and ice cream shop. There are even play areas for the kiddos to enjoy.

The day was very overcast so our photos are not fabulous, but the farm stand was impressive. The strawberries were probably the largest and most red strawberries I have ever seen in my life. The rocking chairs were comfy in case you needed to sit a spell after all that driving you were doing to get there. And the people were very nice. I was impressed because the whole time we were there, the cars never stopped coming in. And we were in the middle of a strawberry field!!

Until next time...

A Little Krafty

Working on a layout for Scrap 'N Chat. Kraft, stencils and a black and white photo. I added a little purple paint, some texture medium and black inks. Maddie was the perfect subject.

Until next time...