A Little Perspective (at Just the Right Moment)

This Saturday I will attempt to walk a marathon (26.2 miles). Then I will set up and sleep in a tent, shower in a truck, and wake up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to walk another half marathon (13.1 miles). I've been training and fundraising for three months, and now the big event is in three days! I tend to spin myself into an anxiety frenzy about this kind of thing--worrying, packing, worrying, worrying.

So it was a blessing to receive this in my inbox. It's a message to all of us walkers from a Crewmember (they are the people who do pretty much everything to make sure that all we walkers have to do is walk and are taken care of if we can't), and is an important reminder about perspective, and why I signed up for this in the first place:

For those about to walk for the first time, I thought this just might help address those nagging questions:

I am so nervous! – Ok, you’re nervous. So what?

What if I can’t walk all the way? – Who cares? No one is keeping track but you.

What if I get a blister? – What if you do?

What if I don’t know anyone? – You’ll meet hundreds of nice people.

What if I packed too much? – You did.

What if I didn’t pack something? – You’ll live.

What if it rains? – You’ll get wet; you won’t drown.

What if is it cold? - You won't freeze to death.

What if it is hot? – You’ll sweat.

What if I don’t like the food? – You’ll pass 472 supermarkets and convenience stores; you’ll manage.

What if I don’t like the porta-potties? – No one LIKES the porta-potties. You’ll survive.

What if I don’t like the showers? – Ok, don’t shower. But you should check with your tent mate first.

What if I can’t sleep in a tent? – You’ll be tired; you’ll sleep.

What if…? Enough already with the “What if’s?” You’ll do fine. Relax and enjoy the experience.

Because of the money you’ve raised, money is going to go towards early detection programs. In a few months, a woman (or a man) is going to take advantage of one of those programs, and is going to find out that they have breast cancer. But because of you, they will have found out early enough to get treatment, and to survive. They are going to get to watch their kids grow up, and to be there at their concerts and their games. They are going to go to their graduations and to their weddings. They are going to get to see their grandchildren. And their kids will never have to face growing up without them. All because of you. And while they will never know it, you will know it.

Any more questions? No?

Have a great walk. Stop by and say hi! I'll be crewing, and spending most of Day 1 at Rest Stop 3, and Day 2 at lunch.

You can bet I'll stop by and say hi. :)

Everyone Photographs Jewelry This Way, Right?

I'm working on photographing some jewelry I've recently made and there is a smidge of sunshine this morning on the back deck.



Everyone photographs jewelry next to their barbecue grill on the deck on top of stacked wooden patio stools with a pillowcase for a backdrop, tomato sauce cans holding down the corners from flying up in the wind, hanging earrings from a Korean rice bowl and waiting for the moment when the sunshine peeks through the clouds and hits the crystals just right and the wind isn't blowing them sideways, right?

"Scrap Your Day" Photos and Pages, Month 1!

My first month of the Scrap Your Day challenge was a success! Here are some of my photos for the day:

Side note: I hate Flickr, I just cannot figure it out, it all seems like such a hassle. Can anyone tell me if I can make the above thumbnail collage within Flickr somehow instead of pasting all the thumbnails into a photo editor and then anally organizing them all into a grid like I did?

In brighter news, I did figure out why my photos weren't popping up into another window, and I fixed it! So if you want to see any of the photos in this post larger, just click on them! :) Yay!

Speaking of being anal, here is a brief glimpse into my mind, via the planning page I drew up before I even printed a single photo:

Yes, I do realize that Shimelle already did this. But not with my measurements. So I drew up her plan and decided how big I wanted each photo to be, and then went about finding photos to stick in each place before I even printed a single thing. It's a sickness, I know. But it did save me a lot of printer paper! I'm all about conservation. :)

Another side note, to the Group C Inspired ladies--Do you now see why Steph's class made me come unglued? I think I should sentence myself to fingerpainting and colorwashing at least once a week. :)

Now! On to the good stuff. Here is my two-page spread, yippee!

The album pages are only 6" x 12" each, so in this essentially 12x12" page I crammed 16 photos. That's a lot!

Hey, did you just count and find only 12? Me too! Let's take a closer look at that top page:

Okay, check out that cute photo of Jason and I:

What is that little strip of green doing under there?

Oh, cool flip page! One more!

Okay, sorry, that good night kiss photo is inexcusable, I know. We don't always kiss like that, but it's hard to aim a camera in the dark with your left hand and try to kiss without laughing. :) When I did my count of 16 photos before I just counted the bottom index print as one 'cause I didn't want to throw everyone off. :) But if you count each one individually it's 31 prints total. I usually don't like doing this many photos on one page, 'cause it's kind of ridiculous, right? But it's all about the challenge, and I thought, "Oh heck, why not?" So there ya go. I also like the look of this faux index print, and how it offers so many tiny little details that helped to make up one day.

Now I have to show you these cool date stamps from Close To My Heart (CTMH):

I love them and plan to use them every month for a little continuity. (Contact your local consultant or me to order.) I almost didn't circle the 25 since it will be the same throughout the year, but then at the last minute I did anyway. :)

The bottom page:

And a close-up of the journaling:

Stuff I used: CTMH acrylic stamps (Library Cards, Today's Date), blocks, and Chocolate ink; Autumn Leaves stamps (which have great designs but don't stick well!); and Sakura gel pens. I stamped right onto some of the photos and I LOVE how the CTMH ink absorbs into the Epson printer paper--I actually saved the larger white scraps just to play with later this week. I also wrote onto some of the photos with the gel pens, and outlined all the photos on the bottom page with the glitter gel pen, which looks cool enough in person to warrant a comment from Jason. :)

All in all, I had so much fun! I think next month I will throw a little more caution to the wind and not plan it all out as much 'cause it took too long. After seeing other people's photos from the day I also plan to take photos a little bit differently next month!

And now, my fellow challenge-ees... I showed you mine, now you show me yours! :)

"Scrap Your Day" Challenge

About two minutes after writing a draft blog posting asking if anyone wanted to do crafting challenges with me, Aimee sent out an e-mail asking me (and a bunch of others) to join her in Shimelle's "Scrap Your Day" challenge. Hoorah! Now that's what I call synchronicity.

Basically the idea--if you don't want to go chasing all over the internet with my links--is that you/we take a bunch photos on the 25th of each month, every month for a year. Then we put all/some/most/whichever don't show our muffin-tops and double-chins and under-eye bags of the photos into this cool calendar/album thingy. Since I spent about a kajillion dollars while I was at Inspired I decided to make the album instead of buying the luscious Making Memories one with the perfectly scalloped edges and the little window on the front. But mine is just as good. :) And FREE since it was all sunk costs, anyway. [Any Econ majors out there know what I'm talking about? :)]

The photos, in general, should document our lives either that day or in general or whatever we want. It's flexible.

So far today I've taken photos of: my alarm clock when I woke up, my morning cappuccino, my lunch, my "studio," my feet, a glass of wine, the computer, the stamps I used to make the album, etc, etc, etc.

And I finished my calendar/album. I used BasicGrey's Stella Ruby papers, which I might not have used had I thought about the fact that most of it will be covered up, and whenever I use BasicGrey papers I like as much of the paper to show as possible since they are expensive beautiful.

Since I haven't finished taking photos today all the pages in the album are still blank. Here is the cover:

25 (as in the 25th of each month) * 12 (as in 12 months) = details. I love it! When completed, this album may or may not accurately reflect a year of my life--but it definitely will reflect some details of that year! The cover is made of bookboard (from PaperSource) that I painted with Making Memories Scrapbook Paint and then covered with the Stella Ruby Paper. I punched the holes with my McGill drill punch and then because the binder rings were going through the holes and making me crazy, I put big eyelets in each of the holes... a nice touch, I think! I love happy accidents! Everything except the word "details" is Close To My Heart acrylic stamps with Chocolate ink, "details" is a Lisa Bearnson foam stamp with MM paint. (Isn't this paper beautiful?)

Here is the "Title Page."And a detail close-up of my journaling. You can't see how cool all my sparkle pens look on here:

In addition to previously-mentioned supplies I used Heidi Swapp foam stamps, Sassafrass Lass stamps, and Sakura gel pens.

The rest of these photos are the blank pages for each month that I will add photos to as we go through the year:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

January:

February:

March:

The Inside back cover, with space for my journaling after I finish the project in a year:

And, finally, the back cover:

All supplies on these pages are the BasicGrey Stella Ruby Papers, DCWV textured cardstock (from the stacks), Close To My Heart (CTMH) Chocolate Ink, and CTMH acyrlic stamps. Let me know if you have any specific questions!

Woo-hoo, can't wait to put photos in it tomorrow!

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels--In Other Words, Your New Plans for Friday Night

Oh my stinkin' heck! Ree posted a new chapter to her ongoing "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" true love story. If you have not followed along with this and don't have nine hours to kills, then please ignore this knowledge for your own good and go off and be productive.

But if you are stuck at home sick, or your husband has commandeered the television, or you have no Friday night plans, or you have been accidentally glued to your computer chair and have some time to kill, or you want to laugh a lot and sigh big sighs while you think of chaps and wide open spaces, then please go visit here. Then be prepared to wait with baited breath until she posts the next chapter.

Amen.

Happy Birthday Mamma Earth!

My friend Kate is super-amazing-cool. She is incredibly smart (I mean, like, knock-your-socks-off smart), absolutely beautiful, an awesome mom, a great friend... and somehow she's totally down-to-earth, too! All around she is pretty much a super hero and I feel lucky to call her (and her husband, Dave) a friend.

Anyway, she and Dave started a blog when they had their first girl Ava, and I love to check in on them from time to time and watch their gorgeous girls grow. I love everything she shared in her Earth Day blog... so I thought I would share! Check it out:

Happy birthday Mamma Earth!

New Avon Walk Page Post

I just added a new post to my Avon Walk training page.

Only TEN days until I walk 40 miles, woo-hoo!

Check out my page by clicking here.

Lots more to say but lots to do so I am going to go do.

Doo bee doo bee doo. :)