Happy Blog-Birthday to Me!

Five years... 

Count them 1... 2... 3... 4... 5...

I can hardly believe its been five years since I started my blog. It's usually easy for me to keep track of when my blog birthday is because my sweet niece founded her blog, Rosehaven Cottage, just before I did. In fact, Cindy was my inspiration!

Keeping a journal has long been an obsession-of-sorts with me. I learned early on that I could work through many problems by writing them down. I've captured precious Heavenly inspiration that, having gone unwritten, would have been completely lost and forgotten.

My blog has been an extension of my journal... and best of all- a Photo Journal.  My memory works much like a mental photograph album... I have technicolor-surround-sound-smell-a-vision memories!

As I anticipated this day I've gone back and read some of my early posts... I love these journeys  I'm so grateful for this wonderful record that has been created for me, and yes, even my posterity.

About this bumble-bee...



He was just chillin' on the side of my shed. He was so big I could see him from my bedroom window. As I mentioned recently, I've always been fascinated by bumble bees. And this happy little fellow hung out long enough for me to get up-close-and-personal. Isn't he beautiful?

Half-Finished

Since we got home from Arkansas I've started working on my 2011 Joanie's Balonie Blog Book. This will be my third year to publish my blog for the year. (ah, well, print... I don't imagine anyone else is clamouring to have my blog in print!)

There is just something that I love about the paper and ink. It's very tactile... it has heft and weight... I can just smell it right now!

Since I didn't do a photo each day last year it is coming along faster than previous years. I'm up to 123 pages through the end of June 2011.

My Twenty-Ten book was 404 pages. The sad story here is that I was totally finished with the book, proof-read and everything, when I went to upload it I found that Blurb had changed their layout so I had to go through and totally re-edit all of my pages since I use every square centimeter of printable space they'll give me! Ahhhhh..... I didn't finish until late summer! The upside is I got 40% off my order.

My 2009 book was 320 pages. I worked on it during the 2010 Winter Olympics and had it finished in February.

I've been very pleased with Blurb! Their prices are very reasonable, even without a discount. And their customer service is stellar. Last year my book arrived with some printing errors (IE- text cut off and photos that didn't bleed off the page as edited). I filled out the form, sent documentary photos of the problems and had a new correctly printed book in just a few days. AND they let me keep the book with mistakes (so now I have one to lend!)

I think I may go back and make a 2007-2008 blog book for consistency. I love the quality of the photos. I've usually done home printing of my journals, but now that I've inserted so many photos I want them to be nice.

I love this winter hiatus from yard work AND this year so far I haven't had to shovel any snow! Whee-haw!  Look at all of the time I have to create!

In With The Old...

Now most of you, especially my children, are shaking their heads and saying, "Mom! It's OUT with the old! Not IN with the old!"  But I really do mean what I say... this time...



The new year frequently finds me reflecting back... call me silly, but there you are. I've spent many a January organizing my journals or working on photo albums. This year it is the latter. (I suppose it's been that for the last few years with my POTD projects)

Perhaps it is because I've hungered for many years for more details about my parent's lives. I wish I had THEIR journals (which as far as I know are non-existent) and I am grateful that my mom was a dedicated photographer with photos to look at and wonder about.  I want there to be a tangible record of who I am for my family, and, yes, for me too.

The year we moved to Utah I felt a great need to connect with my roots... and to keep myself busy with Stuart off on his mission.  That summer of 2005 I got all of my photo albums completed from (I'm embarrassed to say) 1988-2003 completed!  Since then I've done different *spot* projects, focusing in on a particular event, I've made a couple of dozen digital pages, and even printed them... but as far as getting all of those little photo-ducks-in-a-row I've been very lax. 

HA!  but that's all changed.  Yesterday I put up my extra table right here in my office, pulled out a fraction of my scrapbooking supplies, incomplete albums, printed photos and poured myself a nice cold Dr Pepper!  Yes! now that's the life!

So far I've completed Stuart's soccer album, FINALLY!  Caught up a few stray 2003 photos and have moved on, in earnest, to 2004!  Yeah Little Joanie!

I'm in for a long winter scrap... visiting with my OLD friends!

174- My Thoughts and Accomplishments

The first thing that I have to say tonight as I sit on my deck with laptop in lap is that I am so glad that I have my fun photo journal. I've enjoyed it so much. I can look back and see when things happen, peruse my good days and bad. I've never been this consistent before; I've been going strong for 19 months now. What a blessing.

I finished the last of the 10 (TEN) dresses today. Yay for little Joanie! I've been at it for 2 months. Lest you think me a very slow sewer (bwahahaha... sew-er, not sewer, pew!) I've taken time off for unnecessary things like yard work, moving Camille, working on wedding plans, piecing and quilting the *Bee-U-ti-full* wedding quilt and many more things that I can't even think of right now.



The first completed was my mob dress. I only sustained a 4 inch burn on the back of my left upper arm making that one (I backed into the hot iron! Ouchie!) After much angst and letting it hang around (hahahaha) I finally found a piece of beautiful lace in my stash to put at the neck which makes me happy.



Without a doubt the most fun to make of the bunch were the dresses for the little girls. The *polkie-dottie* dresses are for Kevin's little girls and the black and green is for little Emmalie Camille.



But the time I got to the last of these bridesmaid dresses I had the work-flow down pat. I finished the last one in just a few hours. And here they are... pretty maids all in a row. (See the white label? I wrote each girls' name on iron-on interfacing and pressed it on so I would know whose was whose!)



It is my hope that I will be able to eek out enough time in the next 2 weeks and 2 days to post a photo and some of my thoughts... but I'm not going to stress myself. I will remember the advise of the Psalmist, "Fret Not Thyself!"

036- Winter Pond

I've been working on my Project 365/2009 book at Blurb. I'm in the proofing process right now. Today I was reading posts from last June with photos from the Angell wedding reception that was in Eaves backyard. I was talking about their beautiful pond and realized that I've never taken photos just of the pond.

So on this very mid-winter day I present my black and white world to you.


FRAME- FONT- Albemarle Swash, ACTION- CoffeeShop Classic B&W Bittersweet Vignette, BRUSH- RhonnaFarrer_2ps_SnapShot_Horizontal6

Twenty-Ten 001

OK... call me a sap... but I'm just sayin'... after you've done something for 365 days... yup a whole year... you pretty much have a habit formed. I also realized that this is the best journal I've ever kept in my whole life... ah, the benefits!

As 2009 (it's so last decade!) was winding to a close I started to feel excited about not having to do Project 365. But then as today progressed I caved.

So here we go... I spent the day quilting on my happy gerbera daisy quilt that I featured earlier this week. This quilt represents a new challenge in quilting. I am doing a daisy meander on the background but that means maneuvering around all of my ginormous petals. A new year... a new challenge.

023 The Draper Temple

This morning as I was contemplating my day's activity I thought, "What a wonderful photo journal I am making for myself." As I've previously stated, I've never been an every-day journaler. The closest I came was for part of 2007 when I would write a couple of lines on my Far Side calendar before bed. I recognized that I miss so many little things that might just be helpful to me at some future point. Anyway... just a happy thought about my project.

Today's photo is of the new Draper Temple. It is, fittingly, in Draper, UT, about 35 miles from our house. For a couple of months prior to the actual dedication of the Temple there is an open house, where the public can tour the temple. This is a beautiful building with the interior all done in these wonderful smokey-teal colors... almost a sage green... but with that teal cast. It, of course, is wonderfully decorated and has beautiful craftsmanship. The recommend desk is dark marble from China (?) that has these iridescent blue/teal/peacock spots in it, very beautiful.

It was a very foggy, rainy day today and some of my photos were mostly fog! After our tour and bus ride back to where we'd parked Gordon and I drove back up to the Temple in hopes that there would be a little clearing in the fog. I was able to snap this one from the car and it was the best of the bunch!


FONTS- Problem Secretary, CK Cursive, BRUSH- KPertiet_LedgerGrids-9, CoffeeShop.com Color Pop Vignette Action

I was able to feel the Spirit there testifying that it is indeed the House of the Lord. What a wonderful time to live in.

019 Keep a Journal

So here I am... 7 in the evening... my only trip outside in the below freezing Wasatch winter was to bring in our recycling wheelie-bin... and, you guessed it, no photo for this day! I thought I was toast!



Then I thought... wait, I've spent the whole day doing a very good thing! Why not take a photo of that! Our Prophets have urged us to keep a journal; mine isn't a daily affair (though this year it will be with my project 365!) Neither of my parents kept a journal or diary and I have hungered to know them and what they thought. I haven't had the blessing of just being able to ask them.

Over the years I've tried different things. I started with a funny little 5-year diary in my teens that probably only has two dozen entries. In the mid-seventies I "graduated" to spiral bound notebooks, you know, the stenographer kind. Ah, but then the computer became my friend! And I've been very happy ever since!

January frequently finds me in a journal frenzy! One year I compiled all of my letters, notes, etc from about 5 years and printed all of them out; bringing me up to date. This year I needed to finish up 2007 (yep, a year behind) adding my blog entries and printing it out (only 28 pages for 2007).

I now have 2008 all edited and the first 50 pages printed. If I ask my senior printer (probably 5 year old) to print too many pages at a time the color starts going wonky. But if I let it rest an hour or two the cartridge seems to re-power itself and will print another 20-30 pages.

I suppose that it is very telling that my blog has, for the most part, become my journal. I do have personal things that aren't on my blog, but you know me... I'm kind of an out there girl. Also telling is that 2008 is 128 pages. I think that blogging is good for my journaling habit!

Stories In Hand

This week the FREE Stories in Hand class started over at JS.com. It is a totally different format than most of her classes. This isn't how to do digi-scrapping but creating a system for capturing the stories you want and need to tell. This fun 6 x 6" binder (that actually measures 9.5 x 6.5" but has 6x6 pages) is the muse, if you understand me, for my story telling.



The fun part is that it was a hybrid project! (part digi/part paper). I picked up the album at Robert's (gotta love Robert's Crafts, the store previously known as Provo Craft) and got a pink one (what else!!) So when I started all the class stuff on Monday and the course material was all in green and blue (also very cool, but not with pink binding!!) I just HAD to make some changes!



I didn't know, but learned on the message board, that I could open a PDF file in PSE6!!! Yea! I also made changes with the fonts and colors and FINALLY got to use the very cute pink and brown CTMH paper that I've been hoarding for at least 2 years! I am so happy with the results!

But beyond that... it was so fun to paper scrap again... looks like it's a good thing I didn't unload all my scrapping stuff on eBay!!

Journaling (with stress)...

I have to admit that my new Type + Writer class is not without stress. As I've participated in the "free-write" I've analyzed some of my feelings about this. I'm happy with my style of writing and capturing on paper what I have in my heart. BUT then when the "free-write" has rules I start to panic. I am right back in high school (or elementary school) and struggling with my undiagnosed dyslexia and just feeling plain ol' dumb! I have to remind myself that it's ok to be me AND learn new and exciting ways to communicate, but it doesn't come without the accompanying stress.

I've always been drawn to fonts and I love the look of a well set title. I love the way it pulls you into the page. I love the flourish of beautiful fonts or penmanship (something I never perfected).



I love the quote that I've used on the 20 small things layout. I found it when I was looking for quotes for my Quotes Album (still to be completed). It speaks to my heart about the road I've traveled. I am so grateful that is the case.



This road trip layout is actually the 1st assignment. The writing prompt was to make a list of our last adventure, and I LOVE bulleted lists!!! It was so easy and fun to bullet thoughts that described our latest road trip. I loved the list so much that I used it as an overlay on the background paper to capture all of my thoughts.

Type+Writer

I'd totally forgotten that my newest JS class started today. What a surprise to open my email and find that class started today and I'm just now!! looking at my email (2:28 pm).

I've allowed myself one of those rare mornings where I have laid in bed reading until now. I love those kinds of days and I haven't done it for... I don't know how long!

This newest class has me excited because it is about journaling. The quote at the beginning of today's email is:



I had to stop, right now! and write about this... it so well describes how I feel about why I journal. More later...