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osprey_archerSince I started a new job in January, I've been so busy that I've really posted about nothing but books. In this post, I thought I would catch you up on a few other things in my life.
The scrapbookening continues! I had vague visions of doing this in some sort of systematic way, but in fact I've been hopping around in time from event to event. Right now I'm on a wedding kick, having realized that wedding invitations are an excellent "scrap", as are the thank-you notes if the bride and groom happened to send them. (When you are trying to scrapbook events that happened years ago, which you were not at the time planning to scrapbook, often it's difficult to rustle up anything but photographs for the pages.)
I was similarly inspired by the idea of using birthday cards from my 30th birthday bash in my scrapbook. I'd just finished laying out ten beautiful pages when my cat Baby Boy leaped on the table. "Baby Boy!" I wailed, and Baby Boy fled to the far end of the table top, at which point the table tipped under his weight and all my beautiful pages went flying as the table fell over.
Baby Boy is alive, but he was for about ten seconds in serious danger of being made into cat stew.
I've put the 30th birthday pages back together. (Baby Boy fortunately didn't damage anything except one of the cardstock sheets, which is of course now part of my Adventures in Scrapbooking scrapbook page, with a photograph of the destruction that he wrought, with Baby Boy crouched in the background gazing dazed at the fallen table.) But I haven't had the heart to start in on the captions; hence working on weddings instead.
I've also been on a Quest for the perfect three-ring binder. After some experimentation I have concluded that the path of wisdom is a series of one-inch O-rings, as the scrapbook pages turn much more easily than in either O-ring or D-ring two-inchers.
Other things! I'm signed up for an intro to watercolor class tomorrow. As a child I really enjoyed watercolors, but it's been years since I've used them, so a class seemed like a good way to ease back in. Over the summer I acquired a book about nature journaling (a castaway from a retiring professor's office), which enchanted me, and watercolor seems like the perfect medium for a nature journal, since so much of what I find enchanting in nature is the color.
I haven't done much writing - aside from book reviews for DW, and letters, and scrapbooking... Okay, I haven't done much fiction writing this year, but I am ever so slowly dragging myself through the copy-edits on Diary of a Cranky Bookworm. My goal is to get it out in October! (Sage starts her diary in October. Maybe I should make her diary start date my deadline.)
Oh, and I've started going on an evening Cat Walk, as I call it, which consists of walking around the neighborhood to meet the local cats. Porch Cat is an orange tabby who lies reliably in the sun on his porch; Trinket is a one-eyed black cat with a white bib who sometimes prowls around my house. He likes to be petted if he's in the mood, but his two-eyed lookalike runs away whenever people approach. There is a house with a set of associated kittens, half-wild, including a cream one with dark rings round the eyes whom I call Goggles; and around the corner, a fluffy black kitten all tail and eyes named Umi.
The scrapbookening continues! I had vague visions of doing this in some sort of systematic way, but in fact I've been hopping around in time from event to event. Right now I'm on a wedding kick, having realized that wedding invitations are an excellent "scrap", as are the thank-you notes if the bride and groom happened to send them. (When you are trying to scrapbook events that happened years ago, which you were not at the time planning to scrapbook, often it's difficult to rustle up anything but photographs for the pages.)
I was similarly inspired by the idea of using birthday cards from my 30th birthday bash in my scrapbook. I'd just finished laying out ten beautiful pages when my cat Baby Boy leaped on the table. "Baby Boy!" I wailed, and Baby Boy fled to the far end of the table top, at which point the table tipped under his weight and all my beautiful pages went flying as the table fell over.
Baby Boy is alive, but he was for about ten seconds in serious danger of being made into cat stew.
I've put the 30th birthday pages back together. (Baby Boy fortunately didn't damage anything except one of the cardstock sheets, which is of course now part of my Adventures in Scrapbooking scrapbook page, with a photograph of the destruction that he wrought, with Baby Boy crouched in the background gazing dazed at the fallen table.) But I haven't had the heart to start in on the captions; hence working on weddings instead.
I've also been on a Quest for the perfect three-ring binder. After some experimentation I have concluded that the path of wisdom is a series of one-inch O-rings, as the scrapbook pages turn much more easily than in either O-ring or D-ring two-inchers.
Other things! I'm signed up for an intro to watercolor class tomorrow. As a child I really enjoyed watercolors, but it's been years since I've used them, so a class seemed like a good way to ease back in. Over the summer I acquired a book about nature journaling (a castaway from a retiring professor's office), which enchanted me, and watercolor seems like the perfect medium for a nature journal, since so much of what I find enchanting in nature is the color.
I haven't done much writing - aside from book reviews for DW, and letters, and scrapbooking... Okay, I haven't done much fiction writing this year, but I am ever so slowly dragging myself through the copy-edits on Diary of a Cranky Bookworm. My goal is to get it out in October! (Sage starts her diary in October. Maybe I should make her diary start date my deadline.)
Oh, and I've started going on an evening Cat Walk, as I call it, which consists of walking around the neighborhood to meet the local cats. Porch Cat is an orange tabby who lies reliably in the sun on his porch; Trinket is a one-eyed black cat with a white bib who sometimes prowls around my house. He likes to be petted if he's in the mood, but his two-eyed lookalike runs away whenever people approach. There is a house with a set of associated kittens, half-wild, including a cream one with dark rings round the eyes whom I call Goggles; and around the corner, a fluffy black kitten all tail and eyes named Umi.
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Date: 2024-09-02 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2024-09-03 02:00 pm (UTC)And I love the names you come up with for the cats--you are a great cat namer! Googles sounds adorable (and I know from photographic evidence that Umi **is** adorable)
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Date: 2024-09-03 02:25 pm (UTC)I live in hope that Goggles will someday approach close enough for a photo, but if not, perhaps I will paint a Goggles watercolor.
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Date: 2024-09-03 02:36 pm (UTC)[Narrator: the delighted screaming continued]
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Date: 2024-09-03 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-03 04:41 pm (UTC)I apologize
LET THE UNIVERSE HEREBY KNOW THAT I HAVE NO INTEREST IN WHETHER OR NOT JENNIE DOES A WATERCOLOR OF GOOGLES
(... maybe now you are safe... it's ot-nay o-tray that I have no interest, but you know... we need to keep that on the down-low)
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Date: 2024-09-07 06:38 am (UTC)Aww, I like the idea of incorporating the cat-mishap-destruction on the scrapbooking into the scrapbook itself :D
Your neighbourhood cats sound adorable. The other day I met and befriended a very affectionate local cat with beautiful long, soft white fur, but I haven't seen it again since.
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Date: 2024-09-07 05:29 pm (UTC)There is a beautiful white cat somewhere in my neighborhood which I saw ONCE and never again. Mystery cat...
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