These were layouts that I started a few weeks ago at a crop, finished up over the past week or so, and now I'm finally getting around to posting.

























Mel, recognize anything about the "fun" layout? I'm finally going through my stash of class stuff!

Fall Frolics

This weekend I decided that we should take advantage of the nice weather and go climb a local mountain. Chris and I wanted to hike it for a while now, but we just hadn’t had the time. I had been hoping to get some good foliage pictures as well, but that didn’t work out so well.

However, it was absolutely insanely packed with people! First of all, Mt. Monadnock is the most climbed mountain in the world. I’ve hiked it a number of times before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people there before. There were actually three rangers acting as parking attendants since there were so many people there.

Hiking with so many people also presents a number of challenges. There are a lot of rocks to climb to get up this mountain, and we were constantly waiting for others to climb so that we could go. Also a lot of waiting on the way up for others to come down as parts of the path were only one person wide. (And also there were those rocks to climb.) On the way down we were going pretty quickly, or at least we wanted to. But again we were stuck behind slower people. At a couple of points we asked the various groups if we could pass, or at others climbed quickly off the side of the trail a bit so that we could get around.

So I guess it was kind of fun, but I certainly wouldn’t want to go back at such a popular time again. I much prefer it when you only pass a few other people out on the trail.

On the way up we had passed through a town that was having an event called “Scarecrows on the Common”. There were so many scarecrows through that they were all up and down a couple of the main streets, up to mile or so away from the common. I stopped and took pictures of a few of them. I liked this one because not only did they make the scarecrows, but they also made instruments to go with them.

Fall/Party decorations

Took these photos on Sunday during the birthday festivities.

In the first one you can see our collection of glass pumpkins. The flat purple one we got the first year. We went late in the day and there were very few left at that point. The green gourd we got last year, and then the other two were this year's acquisitions. Also got one for Liz that had been out, but we had to hide it while Liz was over. Liz's is clear with a plain green stem, smaller than our clear one. And she did comment that she liked our clear pumpkin, so maybe we picked a good one for her.

We actually only finally got around to hanging the mirror over the mantle on Sunday. Chris had tried it when we first moved in, but it's only a layer of sheet rock over the brick chimney and what he was using woudln't go into the brick. So I suggested using something different to hang it. Only problem is that now the picture hangers show. I'll have to think of something to drape over the mirror to hide the hangers.

And finally, we have the table setting. The cats now are jumping on the table during the night and trying to eat the flowers, or at least the wheat stalks sticking out. I keep finding plant matter on the table in the morning. And the flower arrangement in the background, I think I need to change out those flowers. They're a bit too springy. Oh well. I think my decorating happens in baby steps.

Happy Columbus Day!

In honor of this fine holiday, I now give you a song written by my friend Steve. The thing about this song that always amuses me though, is the fact that he wrote it in the middle of the summer. He was at work one night and was inspired. So, with no further ado, I present you with Steve's song.


Many hundreds of years have gone,
Since those three large ships sailed on,
The deep blue sea which carried he,
Who founded this untamed country!

(Chorus)
Oh, Chris Columbus,
He didn't need no compass,
He sailed those ships,
On through the mists,
To find this land,
Where we now stand.
Hooray, for Chris Columbus!

Some people say he lost his way,
While sailing out from port that day,
It's true that China was his goal,
Until he found this rocky shoal!

(Repeat Chorus)
END.


Perhaps it loses something if you don't know the tune, but every year I always think to myself, "oh Chris Columbus, he didn't need no compass". And there the thought ends because that's the only line I ever remember.

Hope you're having a great day.

Day of scrapping...

Spent the day scrapping. Here are the completed layouts. Still have some others to finish up. Plus need to make two cards before tomorrow evening.

"Caught up" with High Points

Not that he's actually hiked Mt. McKinley... The journaling on that page talks about a trip this summer to the national park that the mountain is in. And about how he'll never hike that peak.

So now I'm semi-caught up on these pages. Done with all of the pages that I have journaling for. 3 or 4 more states that he's hiked that I still need to get info about. And then I just have to wait for him to hike more high points.

I had been planning to work on more pages for my dad or on some birthday cards, but instead I put this page together. Chris has a haircut tomorrow, and the gals at the palce where he gets his hair cut scrap and he's been wanting to show them some of my stuff. and he's told them about our Derby, so he wanted to bring them in Derby pictures. So, I figured I should probably get this page finished.

And in other news, Andrew has a flight home! He'll be back in Massachusetts on Sunday evening. We had been hoping to have a homecoming/birthday party on Sunday afternoon, and then we realized that with timing it probably woudl need to be postponed two weeks, and now we're back to wondering if it can happen on Sunday or not. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll know for sure what's happening.

Some more pages here for my dad's album. He's got a birthday coming up, so trying to get a bunch of pages done for him. Two more to go...

A nice fall weekend

Friday evening Chris and I went into Cambridge to check out the Great Glass Pumpkin at MIT. Friday evening they were having a showing of all of the pumpkins that would be on sale on Saturday. The show ran from 5-7 and Chris was getting really annoyed with me as we were driving in and it was getting closer and closer to 7:00. By the time we found parking it was just about 7. (Later we realized it was a permit only spot. Good thing we didn’t get ticketed!) Luckily they were really in no hurry to kick people out. So we had a chance to look at all the pumpkins, get a sense of some that we liked, marvel at the uniqueness of some of them, etc.

After checking out the pumpkins we headed to Bugaboo for Chris’ birthday dinner. And of course I had to embarrass him by having the servers all come out singing with the big moose puppet.

Saturday we got up bright and early and headed back to MIT for the pumpkin sale. The sale was at 10:00 (we got there at 9) and if you arrived before 9:20 you would get a ticket to save your place in line so that you could go get coffee, etc. So we got our ticket, went to Dunkin’ Donuts and then walked around the perimeter of the patch trying to see some pumpkins to try to get. Around 9:30 they started to get all of us with tickets organized. Having arrived an hour early, there were about 200 people in front of us. Eek! Supposedly people start showing up 3 hours early for this thing. Once they start letting people in, it’s pretty much a free for all. The signs say no hoarding, but people ignore them. You pretty much grab a bunch (or at least a bunch in your price range) and then start deciding which you want to keep. And in about 5-10 minutes almost all of the pumpkins have been grabbed up. We really lucked out and actually got the ones that we had seen while walking the perimeter. We knew exactly where that pile of pumpkins was, so Chris walked straight towards it. I made a slight detour towards another one that had caught my eye (in case the first one had already been taken) and then I met up with Chris. We walked around a bit more looking for some more options, and I think we did find another one that we liked. In the end we got two for ourselves and one for Liz for Christmas.

The rest of Saturday was spent running errands. I stopped at the LSS and picked up some of the new Karen Russell Fontwerks stamps- my first red rubber unmounteds. After using clear acrylics lately it was a bit of a switch to go back to red stamps.

Sunday was raining, so I spent most of the day being a bum watching TV. I had hoped that this weekend was going to be productive scrapping wise, but I only got one layout done. It’s posted over at 2Peas. I did manage to spend some time cleaning my scrap table though, and that was definitely needed!

Happy Birthday Chris!

So today is Chris' Birthday. When he got home from work I had the gifts all laid out. Two from his parents, a card from my mom, and a gift from me. I think he was a little upset at first because he could tell which one was from me, and it wasn't anything from his wish list.

After dinner (and watching an episode of CSI Miami, our latest Netflix addiction) we had cake. Unfortunately the number 8 candle just didn't want to stay lit.


Finally I let him open his presents. First he opened the ones from his parents. Two models that he had asked for. Then he opened mine- a box of cash! He's been wanting to get a scroll saw, and since I am not qualified enough to pick out a scroll saw, I figured cash was safer. It was a mix of $5s and $1s, and one $2 bill. I actually had a fun time going to the bank and trying to figure out how mean I wanted to be. All ones? All fives? I think the combo of bills worked well, and he admits that he likes the gift.

Made this LO for my church. A lot of the ladies there are CM scrappers, so it will be interesting to see/hear what they think of this.

The associate pastor who works with the youth group is really good about taking pictures of events and then he makes an 8.5x11 collage of them and labels the event. That's a good start, but my problem with it is that often the pictures are too small to tell what's going on, and he never labels the people. However, that is an improvement over what used to be done with event pictures.- They would be stuck on a bulletin board and then taken down after a couple of months. Sometimes they were then put in a magnetic album, but not always. I bet there's a bag somewhere full of old photos!


So to try to improve the photo situation, I made this LO. I made it to fit in a CM album (slightly narrower), so hopefully someone will think to add it to an existing album or start a new one for the youth group.

Fun Game!

And when you've given up, the answers are on this site.

Chris and I were able to get about half of them.

Weekend Update, with Chris Breecher

The weekend started on Friday with Chris picking me up from work. We were headed off to Gardner to meet my dad, Liz and Hanna for dinner. After sitting in traffic for far too long, we finally got clear of the Concord rotary and were on our way! Dinner was interesting. It was a new brew pub that my dad had been to a few times before. However, service was spotty. We even created our own comment card for them because there were a few things we wanted to bring to their attention- bland eggplant parmesan, server had too many tables for his level of expertise, drinks took far too long to arrive, apple crisp was frozen inside… We also commented that we did like the place and hoped that they could fix these problems so that they would do well. Luckily we weren’t in a hurry because dinner took over 2 hours.

When we got back to the house we played some charades. I think Hanna was more into this game than the rest of us combined. She’s almost 12 now, and I’m seeing how she’s so much more grown up! Very much changed from the 3-year-old I first knew who would run around the house screaming “I’m butt naked, I’m butt naked” when I would babysit her.

Saturday we had been planning to get up early do some chainsawing and other brush removal (after all, this had been deemed “Chainsaw Weekend”) as well as go apple picking. Unfortunately it was raining, and it rained pretty much all day. Instead Chris and I slept in until 11! Wow, I needed that. I was surprised that we were allowed to sleep in that late, but seeing how it was raining, it kind of put a damper on the rest of our plans. So instead we did some reading, took an afternoon nap, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, etc.

Liz also has this idea to turn the house at Secret Lake into a bed and breakfast, so I know that Chris and I spent pretty much the whole weekend thinking of all the things that would need to be changed, improved, etc to get it to that point. It’s a nice idea, I’m just not sure how good an idea it would be.

Sunday we got up semi-early and headed back to Belmont. Getting an early start on the day allowed me to get a whole bunch of stuff done yesterday. We did laundry, I did some handwashing I had put off for way too long, did some house cleaning, weeded the garden, made fresh pesto (thanks Julie for the recipe!), edited some photos for a layout I want to do, and started decorating for fall/Halloween.

And my 2005 album is officially complete!

Is this what we're teaching people?

So I received a letter yesterday from my alma mater that really bothered me. It was encouraging me to come to Homecoming, meet the new head of the Theatre Department, etc. The letter in and of itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was, there were two errors in it. One was a period at the end of a phrase, making it difficult for me to read the sentence as it wasn’t actually a complete sentence the way it had been written. The second mistake was that it had “our” instead of “are. Very different words!

I had made the comment to Chris that this letter bothered me, especially coming from an academic institution. I even had him read it, but he didn’t find any errors. I then pointed them out to him, and he didn’t think it was a big deal- just a couple of typos and that they didn’t proof read it. Well, yeah. That’s exactly the problem. A letter being sent out to hundreds of people (it was only sent out to theatre majors) shouldn’t have those kinds of errors. It should have been proof read. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I often have errors in things I write. But to me, coming from a university, this never should have happened.

I have no idea who typed the letter. It could have been the former Department Chair (whose name was on the letter), an assistant, a student, someone in the alumni office, etc. I don’t think it necessarily matters who made the mistakes. But I ask this of you now, am I overreacting to this, or do you agree that this paints the university in a poor light?

Ahoy, Mateys!

So you may not be aware, but today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I was very excited about this day (I think it’s very funny that such a day exists) until last night. You see, last night was the season premiere of Wife Swap. Normally I don’t watch it, but nothing else was really on and I was only half watching as I worked on other things. Well, one of the families featured on the show was a pirate family, and the father was one of the co-founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day. However, I was thoroughly disgusted by the attitude of the Pirate Wife. She really pissed me off. Normally I don’t get so bothered by the participants. Watching her really turned me off to the whole Pirate thing…

I will leave you with this though, which I recently saw and decided to share on this fine pirate day. Pirate Crafts.

First, the card I made for Mel when she told me her news. I was anxiously awaiting her telling the rest of blog-dom so that I could post the card. Well, that and it's just exciting news to share!

The second card is one I made for Andrew. It's the last card he'll be getting from me on this hike. I'm kind of glad he's almost done. Assuming no major delays, he should be back in MA around Oct. 1st. It's a little tricky right now though as there's another forest fire, this one being right on the border. They were thinking they would need to find a new way into Canada, but the fire may be under control now. Not sure.

Done for the weekend!

Whew! What a lot of scrapping. I am now done for the weekend! 8 Layouts done, 1 still needing journaling (but waiting for my dad for that), 2 in process (but those are very simple), and 1 card done. I am exhausted. But feeling a great sense of accomplishment. My 2005 album is essentially done. That's the one I'm waiting on journaling from my dad. I let him know I wanted the info sooner rather than later. Let's just hope I can keep the scrapping mojo flowing!

1st Layout of the weekend...

Went to a craop last night. Here's the first that is done. Finished up the journaling last night. Still need to do journaling on all the others. Hopefully will get that all done today.

Wow. The emotion in this layout really struck me! I can understand wanting to keep the watch, but what a horrific keepsake of the exact moment when your loved one died.

I'm tempted to try the challenge that it is part of, but not sure if I have anything appropriate to document. I'll need to look through all of my pictures.

Crocs- Love/Hate

Christy, you're right! The bling is a major pain to put on. However, it looks cute so I can't complain too much. And thanks again for sending me the kit. I wonder if it would be easier to only peel back part of it at a time. Might be harder to center that way though.

I realized the journaling may be a bit too tough to read, so here it is:
I have a love-hate relationship with these shoes. I first learned about Crocs when Andrew was hiking the AT. I had gone to meet hima t Bear Mountain and there were a number of people wearing Crocs. I though they were the most hideous shoes that I had ever seen. A year later I started hearing non-hikers rave about how comfortable they were and I saw them in a few stores. Now, this year, in complete disgust that they were being sold in places like The Paper Store (Hallmark), I broke down and bought a pair for myself.

Are they all they're cracked up to be? I still haven't made my mind up on that one. They are great for hanging out at home. After standing and scrapping for a while my feet don't hurt like they nromally do. However, to wear while running errands, if worn without socks they rub my foot a little, and if worn with socks, the socks get all twisted. I think I'll have to test them out a bit longer so that I can fully make up my mind.

Halloween Fun

I was trying to be good and make page kits for a crop I'm going to this weekend, but then I was inspired to just make this LO now rather than bringing it along. Only 4 more LOs and I'm done with 2005! I'm so excited about that.

And even though I posted on Christy's blog saying that I was going to wait until the 30th to decorate for fall/Halloween, I think that will be happening sooner. I am very much wanting to do some decorating now.

Ham and jam and SPAMALOT!

This is my entry for the Becky April Challenge. The patterned paper is a bit orange-y for the yellow of the Playbill, but it does match the Spamalot title. I think I'm pleased with it.