o/` Auld Lang Syne o/`

So it's been awhile, the holidays have been a lil hectic but good.

We were lucky to get to celebrate two festive days of Christmas this year. My mother is such a giving woman that she agreed to hold our Christmas dinner on December 23rd so that I could join Sean, my partner with his family in Kingston for Christmas Day.

The tree at my mom's - she has yorkshire terriers, hence the yorkie angel on the top of her tree:

We enjoyed a Christmas afternoon dinner with my mom, where I gave my niece her big present (a little tykes digital camera) and we received so many nice gifts from my mom and her partner too. My mom bought me cute pjs, winnie seat covers for my van, a cute 'girls night out' themed piggy bank, little hersey travel mugs, a vaccuum that we received in the fall, and many other little things.

I worked Christmas Eve while Sean was off running the rest of our errands to pick up last minute gifts and pack the car to head off to visit Sean's family until Boxing Day in Kingston. We shared Christmas with his mom and grandparents. It was lovely as it was not too busy and was rather relaxing. His grandparents treat us both like gold and his mom is always easy to talk to.

The lovely set dinner table at Sean's grandparents:













We don't have set plans for New Year's Eve as we're both working and may not be able to getaway early; so as long as Sean and I start another year - 2008 - together, I'm happy. I am a true believer of the old wive's tale that if a couple is apart on New Year's Eve, that they may not spend the rest of the year together either.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy New Year!

Hoping 2008 is full of many wonderful moments of love and laughter!

Until next time :)

Sisters and Brothers...

It just doesn't get much better than this! My niece giving her little brother a big squeeze.

Happy December 1st!

Until next time :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I love the holidays!

It's one of my favorite times of year. I love the holiday tunes and could listen to them all year round, although that would drive the people around me crazy. I get excited about what surprises I can give and how I can help to make other people full of the Christmas spirit as well. I just can't help getting caught up in the festive mood of the holidays.

And this year, we've actually just had our first snow storm, as last year I don't remember there being much snow before Christmas... My sister took some photos of our first snow.

The snowman made by our neighbor's son:


My niece's version of a snowman:

Until next time :)

Journal a quote... or two

Well in my effort to work on the thisisme journal challenges, I completed a page about my favorite quote which I talked a bit about in my previous post.

Here is the lay out I completed for the quote challenge:



I have to find a better surface to use to photo my layouts. I made this one fairly simple as not to draw away from the quote.

The title letters for life were chipboard with glitter accents which I've never used before. I don't usually like my own handwriting but I didn't want to have to use that many letters and my printer was out of ink.

The photo below the quote is a picture of the planes that often fly quite low in our area as we are close to the airport. I love how the clouds look in the photo. The photo in the top left is a moo card of one of my florida pictures, and the small sun is a rub on I had as I am trying to use the supplies I have instead of buying new ones without knowing where I will use them.

Until next time :)

Little Moments

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Way back in high school, I chose this quote for my yearbook graduation blurb as a reminder of those awkward growing years. I believed that life would not wait for anyone.

No matter what decisions I tried to make at that stage in life, I really had no idea how things would work out. As time has gone by, I have learned that no matter how much you try to plan things, life happens and it's our reactions to those events that help us to grow into the people we are meant to be.

When I was looking for the perfect quote for the yearbook as I was approaching high school graduation, these words were painted on a wall as graffiti in the movie 'Kuffs' with Christian Slater. They jumped out at me, screaming for me to brand these words into my memory.

I knew this would be my quote.

I don't think I really understood back then how applicable this quote would be to my life. When I do take time to reflect about the past and where it has brought me to today, I remind myself that life is not about having everything mapped out that we forget to just enjoy the little moments that happen day to day that bring our big picture into focus.

So when I realized along my journey that those words I attributed to Christian Slater's character were indeed the lyrics of a great musician, John Lennon, I was even more in awe of these profound words.

I have to laugh because I believe it was another movie that I felt strongly about - Mr. Holland's Opus - that led me to realize the lyrics were from the song 'Beautiful Boy'. I've always been partial to music, it invokes such strong emotions in me as I tend to associate a memory with a song, or a catchy upbeat tempo has the power to take me from a miserable day to a happier place.

So in all this, I guess I just wanted to say that sometimes when I'm not able to get creative when I want to due to time, work or other distractions because life is happening all around me that I am just busy enjoying the little moments...

Speaking of moments and people that capture my heart:



My nephew, Zack, who in January will be one year old (it goes by so fast) hanging out with the love of my life - Sean.

Until next time :)

Journey into the Unknown...

Yesterday was a pretty productive day for me.

I've been in the process of changing jobs in the last week, so it has been a little hectic. The new position is data entry for Passport Canada.

Of course like many of the government positions, I'll be there on contract through an agency, but it was an opportunity I just couldn't turn down... My first day of training was Monday and although the trainers and the session were great, they had neglected to inform our agency that we needed to get security clearance processed directly through Passport Canada, whether we had security clearance or not. My enhanced clearance is valid until 2010, and I've successfully cleared reliability testing in the government selection process in the past. It was just a little frustrating as I had to make a second trip yesterday to show my original birth certificate so the project manager could make a photocopy and process my clearance package. Until all of our clearances are processed, we are not allowed to work due to the nature of the position and information we will be handling.

So after dropping by the Gatineau office, I made my way back home. I had taken the camera with me, as although it was a bit cloudy, I thought it would be a good photo day... Here are some photos I snapped while crossing the bridge back to Ottawa.


It was close to 11am when I turned off the main road to park a little ways from the path to the river not too far from my house. I grabbed my camera, a bottle of water and my cell phone and wandered down the path to the water. I thought it might rain as it was a bit hazy, but it held off while I was meandering.









Once I finished my short walk and photo taking, I wandered back to the van to get back home where I met up with my sister who was waiting for the school bus with my niece. Once my niece was on her way to school, we grabbed some timmy's, came home and cleaned the kitchen up. At the end of the day, my Mom passed by to visit for a cup of coffee as she had been shopping in the city, we had dinner and then played some scrabble on www.facebook.com

I am currently working on a quote layout after cleaning my crafting space again this past weekend, and hope to post it soon.

Until next time :)

Monday, Monday...

I'm on my way to work, almost out the door; but I wanted to finally post one of my lay outs. I ended up placing it on my magnet board to get a picture, but I want to figure out how I can get a better, closer image.

Anyways, this is for the September 12th, 2007 We love to spread the love challenge. I took quite some time trying to put this together, but I really like it. I used foam and paint to make the heart I placed in the middle, which is a stretch for me as I don't usually mix different types of art into my scrapbooking.

So tada, the finished product:



Until next time :)

Musical Chairs

So last week was a little hectic, and this one will just be even busier... I actually went out Saturday with my family, so there went my plan of scrapping in the morning, out the window! It was a crazy day, we didn't get back until late, but it was great to spend time with my mom, sister, niece and nephew.

So instead of posting my layout just yet, I thought I'd post the photo I may decide to use in my Ultimate Mix lay out. I snapped while waiting for an appointment in my van recently, and didn't realize the cigarette tray was a bit open when I took it. Ah well, it rarely gets used anymore as I don't smoke, but I was frustrated I didn't notice it when I took the photo, I may retake it... we'll see.




As for my list of tunes, I will add the unfinished list here for now as brainstorming so I don't forget the ones I've already targeted for this project. I was trying to figure out what the ultimiate mix would be as I have an all-time favorites list, but also a favorite songs of the moment list... very hard task this is...

Possession - Sarah Mclachlan
Heaven - Bryan Adams
Tomorrow Wendy - Concrete Blonde
I Run For Life - Melissa Etheridge
Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix
Imagine - John Lennon
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Lost Together - Blue Rodeo
Insensitive - Jann Arden
Don't Take The Girl - Tim McGraw

I'll have to think about this a bit more, and edit the list before the lay out gets done, but I will definitely post photos once I do!

I tend to like all music except very little rap, I am the type of music lover who cannot believe there is a way to exist in this world without music. For me, it is truly the soundtrack of my life. I associate many important moments with a song, it's just the way my memory bank works and I like it. My mom used to joke that I could remember any lyric from a song, and if only I could study for my education in that same way, I would get even better marks than I did.

Well I have to run to work now.

Until next time :)

Back to the Real World

So as usual, life is busy with work and all the other stuff that makes the every day a little less normal.

I'm still trying to get my mixed tape layout together - it took me awhile to figure out what I would include on my ultimate mix tape rather than my music of the moment. I listen to anything and everything besides rap, so narrowing it down to a list that might fit on a layout and how to document that list has become a bit daunting. However I hope to finish this one on Saturday morning, so I can catch up on the lay outs I've missed in my late start to the This Is Me challenge.

At least I can still depend on the world around me to inspire my photographic muse. The picture below is a magnetic board I bought at IKEA after seeing people's inspiration boards on flickr. I added some photos, some homemade magnets, and some postcards but am far from finished. The photo of this board sort of loses the depth, as does the white wall it is hanging on, but hopefully you get the idea...



Well I'm off to the real world (work) soon, but I'm hoping to snap some shots before as it's a beautiful sunshiney day!

Until next time :)

Just Another Manic Monday

Well I'm still working on my lay out, busy holiday weekend and all, so I thought I'd post a photo as I want this journal to help inspire my photography since as much as I love scrapping, it's partly because I love finding perfect ways to showcase my photos and memories.

Rarely do I take a photo thinking "how can I scrap this ?" but sometimes I will see a photo that makes me think "wow, that would make a great layout..."

I took this photo on my drive to work a few days ago, made me realize how school is just around the corner, although my niece's senior kindergarten class only begins on the second week of September.


Until next time :)

Wow... A brand new space

I decided I wanted a place to update my crafty endeavours and photographs instead of placing them all on livejournal or my blog here that unfortunately goes MIA for months, even a year at a time. So instead I decided to inspire myself with creating a new webspace just for creative postings and link to them if needed, well it sounds good to me.

I've always enjoyed taking photos and almost always have a notbook with me to journal, so when I began scrapbooking a few years ago, it really wasn't a large leap for me to fall in love with this hobby.

I don't always remember to take photos of my lay outs because usually they end up being gift books for other people, so I want to document my scrapping journey more and hope to do so with this site. I also wouldn't mind hearing feedback so I can learn more about different scrapbooking techniques I might try as I still feel I am quite a beginner and just go with what I like and enjoy.

I just found this site: This is Me and I am in love with it! Very inspiring! I can't wait to start the challenges!

Until next time :)