Flashback Fridays

(7th grade school picture)

To prepare for this post today, I decided to look through my old journals. I found a journal from 1991. It was fun to read through all the entries. I wish I could go back to my younger self and give her some peace of mind. There were many hilarious entries and some heartbreaking. There were some common themes throughout.

1) I felt overwhelmed by all I needed to do for school and worried about whether I would get good grades. I had very high expectations for myself.

2) I always watched McGyver. I thought it was so cool that he could get out of all those sticky situations without using violence.

3) I was concerned about the war in Iraq.

4) I loved my puppy, Bandit.

5) The thing I always wanted to do was visit my sister in the big city and stay overnight and shop until we dropped.

6) I hated Mondays back then too.

7) I worried about my recent perm and if people were going to make fun of me.

8) I was seeking more freedom and privacy.

9) I looked up to my sister's and brother's lives in the big city.

10) When I grew up, I wanted to be a writer, an interior decorator, a vet, a teacher and be involved in politics. 3 out of 6 isn't bad.

Peek-a-boo

I've been in a creative rut the last few days, so I decided to break out more stamps on this page. I needed to do something different. I love this series of photos of my nieces. They had so much fun together at Christmas. I am so glad my nieces and nephew get to see each other as often as they do. I hope they remain life long friends.

Here's a closer look at some of the details.

Ten on Tuesday

1) I got a new cell phone this weekend. I needed a new battery, but they told me they didn't make those type of batteries anymore. My phone was less than 2 years old! They also don't make the cool green color phone anymore either. Bummer!

2) I'm inspired by this and this.

3) I recently made a 2009 Year in Review book through Shutterfly. I found that I didn't do much in the month of March. So, I've decided to make more plans this year. First idea--run a 5K.

4) I ate at Punch Pizza and Sawtadee this weekend. Yum!

5) I'm playing along with the challenges for the Two Peas CHA Winter Online Social. Fun looking products coming soon!

6) I'm fighting off a cold.

7) I love Honda. I have always gotten great service. (Knock on wood) This weekend they reattached a piece of rubber that had come undone and put on my new license plates and they didn't charge me for either. Awesome!

8) I want one of these.

9) I don't have cable, but I love The Food Network and the HGTV channel. I recently discovered I can watch these shows online. Welcome to the 21st century Sara.

10) This weekend can't come soon enough.

Games

I love games. I always have. I'm glad my parents thought it was important to play games together. I have very good memories of sitting around the dining room table laughing and strategizing and learning and winning!

This layout is about one of my recent favorites, Jenga. I like that you can play both with other people and on your own. I enjoy the challenge. Other recent favorites include Connect 4 and Yahtzee Free For All.

My all time favorites are Sorry, 500 and Pictionary.

I remember when I was little and I stayed home from school because I was sick, my Mom and I would play Sorry for hours. Thanks Mom!

I remember (finally) being old enough to learn 500. Being the youngest, I waited and waited to learn. I watched so many games and was so happy to finally be a part of the club. 500 has been in our family forever. I love to hear stories of my Grandma's strategies and what she used to say during a hand.

I remember playing Pictionary with friends and falling on the floor laughing from some of the drawings and being amazed when a team could guess the answer with very little drawn on the paper.

What are your favorite games, recent or all time?

Flashback Fridays

Every Friday I'm going to feature a photo from the pre-digital era. This will not only help me in my quest to scan them all, but be a fun trip down memory lane too.

This one comes from circa 1979. I love this picture of me and my siblings playing and being silly. I like that my sister and brother are looking back at me to see if I'm having fun. I'm so thankful that I had older siblings to watch over me and keep me safe and teach me all about life. I love them very much!

American Crafts Challenge

Here's my page for this week's challenge. We needed to use Minimarks. I also used Flair, because I can't do a page without it! The page is about a trip to the arboretum back in 2007. It's one of my favorite places. The shadow picture is of me and my nieces. I take a lot of those kind of pictures. I think they're fun. Thanks for looking!

Supplies used:

AC Minimarks, "Traveler Phrases," "Cafe Accents," and "IM Phrases"

AC Flair, "So Fun"

Jillibean Soup Journaling Sprouts

Crate paper Cottage Collection, "Flight," "Fireflies," "Coco," and "Bouquet"

Ten on Tuesday

I'm going to try and have a regular feature every Tuesday called Ten on Tuesday. I got the idea from reading Laura's blog, and she was inspired by Elizabeth. Laura has a great blog and I always love seeing her scrap creations. Check them out! Elizabeth can also be found here. A blog with tons of inspiration!

1) I'm really enjoying clementines. They are very tasty.

2) I'm on Team Conan.

3) I'm having a hard time making a decision. I hope I have an epiphany soon.

4) I had a Mama Mia dance party with my family at my niece's birthday party. Such fun!

5) The warmer weather has been delightful. Thankful for the reprieve from the awful cold.

6) I'm glad Glee won for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes. Best new show in a long time.

7) Playing Connect 4. Played it all the time as a kid. Fun to be playing it again.

8) Drinking lots and lots of tea. I haven't craved Pepsi in many weeks. Victory!

9) I have a to do list for January that has too many items still on it for only a few weeks left.

10) I continue to think about the tragedy in Haiti. Donating what I can to the relief effort doesn't seem like enough.

Super Sketches

On the Two Peas website, there is a class called Super Sketches. I created a layout for the last sketch of the year. I don't often use sketches, but I will now. I made the layout in 15 minutes! It was so easy. I plan to use the sketches from the other months on future layouts. I journaled about the 5K my family and I participated in last fall. I'm looking forward to running in it again this year.

American Crafts Challenge

Some of my favorite scrappy products come from American Crafts. They had a challenge on their blog to create a page using AC products and finish it in 30 minutes. Here is my take. I used the Letterbox line, which has some fun patterned paper. I can't wait to create more pages with it. I love this picture of my niece from this summer, so it was easy to scrap. Ah, summer. How I miss thee!

Supplies used: Letterbox paper, "Postcard" Flair, "Rockabye" Thickers, Heidi Swapp journaling spots and Happy Tape.

What's In My Reading Pile

1) John Irving's, "A Prayer to Owen Meany." A recommendation from my Mom. I've started to read it and I don't know why I haven't read him before. Excellent.

2) Uwen Akpan's, "Say You're One of Them." This is an Oprah Book Club recommendation. Looking forward to diving into this one.

3) "Kids' Letters to President Obama." This is a delightful book. Whenever I'm having a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day," I take out this book and I'm immediately in a better mood. Hope is restored. My current favorite is from a child who asked, "Do you think you could pass a law making chocolate a vegetable in our country?"

4) Donald Miller's, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." This was recommended by my favorite life artist and blogger, Ali Edwards. This book explores life and the importance of one's own story. It's a book of reflection, which I'm doing a lot of lately.

5) Barbara's Kingsolver's, "The Lacuna." I enjoyed "The Poisonwood Bible," and I have high expectations that this one is just as good.

6) Bill Clinton's "Giving." I'm rereading this one. This book gives detailed information about numerous organizations that are changing the world. One of my resolutions is to give more to organizations doing good work for women and children.

What are you reading?

Favorites from 2009

Here are a few of my favorite scrap pages from 2009. I noticed that the ones I liked the most were because of the story I chose to tell on the page. Being able to document all these great stories is why I love scrapbooking so much. Although the product is fun too! Thanks for looking.

I started scrapping more heritage photos in 2009. I hope to continue to do more of this in 2010. This photo is the only one I have of my Mom's parents in the same photo and with her in it too! I never knew my Grandpa, so I cherish these few photos I have of him.

The photo says it all, so I kept the design simple. I like the white on white and the pop of red.

I create a page a month that gives an overview of what happened. I particularly liked June 2009 because I tried to break away from my usual design. I painted on this one and added a bunch of different elements.

This is a layout I created for my Dad for Father's Day. I like the look of journaling from a typewriter. I like the simple design. I like creating layouts that tell a story about someone I love.

I've been trying to take more pictures of my surroundings, of the everyday. I like this one because it captures the drastic change in weather we can have here in a week's time.

I like this one because of the photo, which is why I enlarged it. Thanks Dad! I also like the mix of different patterns in the paper and the chipboard title.

I like this one because it documents things my Mom has told me throughout my life and which has provided me with much needed perspective many times over. I also like using photos from different times. I like the contrast it adds and the memories it evokes.

Again, thanks for looking!

Stay tuned tomorrow to see what I'm reading in the new year.

Happy Birthday D!

Wishing my wonderful, creative, smart, thoughtful, funny niece a most awesome birthday!

Am I 32 or 80?

Sorry for the dark photo. It's hard to get a good one when I leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark! Darn winter!

Journaling reads:

My family often teases me about characteristics I possess that are often associated with an older person. A few are: I like to watch TPTs Jim Lehrer; I enjoy a rousing bingo game; I love taking naps; I enjoy a nice walk and I would eat dinner at 4:30 pm every night if I could swing it with my schedule.

If you're interested in the supplies I used on the layout, check out my Two Peas gallery.

Holiday Highlights

The last few years have been different from previous years in terms of how and where I celebrate Christmas. For someone that doesn't like change, I'm trying to adjust gracefully. I had a wonderful time with my parents at my place on Christmas Eve, at my sister's house on Christmas Day and at my brother's house for several days following Christmas. I thought it would be fun to share the highlights from the holiday.

1) Making Grandma's cinnamon rolls with my Mom. I remember making these as a child and I wanted to bring the tradition back. They were delicious and surprisingly easy to make!

2) Attending an actual midnight mass. We had a hard time finding parking after the snowstorm dumped 5 inches of snow, but once inside, it was beautiful and warm. We listened to the choir sing hymns prior to the mass. It was lovely.

3) Playing with Ds new cash register machine. I loved playing store as a kid and this cash register brings it to a whole new level. It comes with a credit card!

3) Having a flight on time the day after a snowstorm and a failed terrorist attack.

4) Sharing laughs, playing games, and opening gifts.

5) Going sledding. I was the picture taker. I didn't actually partake in the sledding, but my bro, nephew and niece had a blast!

6) Watching the cousins play together. They are four of the coolest people I know. Love them!

7) Seeing Up in the Air. Loved this movie and loved going with my family. Hard to go wrong with George Clooney.

8) Giving gifts. I love making homemade gifts and this year was no different. I made little notebooks, which I think turned out really cute. Great for making lists or drawing or coloring. I also made my parents a scrap page from our trip to D.C.

Thank you to my family for being such great hosts during our holiday celebrations! The food, drink and merriment was wonderful and won't soon be forgotten. Miss you all already!

Brrr....

This is the temperature while driving around yesterday. Bone chilling. It's times like these I wonder why o' why do I live here? So, instead of complaining about the weather, as is the MN way, I will list 5 reasons to love below zero temperatures.

1) Watching movies and reading books to your heart's content.

2) Enjoying cups and cups of hot drinks.

3) Cozying under chunky sweaters and fleecy blankets, (while watching the movies and reading the books)

4) Playing 500.

5) Taking lots of naps.

Comment below if you have other below zero activities you enjoy.

So Long 2009. Welcome 2010.

Welcome to my new blog! I've been wanting to start a blog for awhile now and the new year offered the push I needed. I plan to share the stories of my life using photos and scrap pages. I hope you will stop by often.

Instead of resolutions, I make a list of to dos on my birthday, based on my new age, to accomplish that year. Here is a page I created listing some of the things I hope to do before my next birthday.

I got this idea from Kelly Purkey, a blogger and scrapper extraordinaire. Thanks for the inspiration!

A few of my to dos are:

1) Run a 5K

2) Travel overseas

3) Go to a Broadway play

4) Learn to let it go

5) Go to an outdoor movie

I'd love to hear what you plan to do in 2010.