Brooding as a Process

cranky chicken sitting in the hen house

My Simple Scrapper Finishing Day project was to continue work on my Mom Trips album.  It was a pocket page album, but it had been a struggle to make the photos fit into the page protectors and fill the pages.  The first two trips were done, but I was decidedly unhappy about the album.  It was to be a document of the adventures I have with my friends, but my desire to work on the project was very low.

On Finishing Day, rather than picking up my project to start on the next trip, I just stood there, flipping through the pages.  I had already decided I was going to abandon the pocket page format for the rest of the album.  Pocket pages had lost their allure. 

I wanted to pitch everything, and just start fresh.  I also didn’t want to repeat the work from the two trips.  Usually if I have an “off” page in an album, I just leave it as is.  If the story is told, it’s good enough.

I decided not to work on the project, and instead just sit and brood.  Pout.  Question my ability to scrapbook.   I’d get up periodically, flip through the pages, then sit down and brood some more. 

The third time I got up, I had a better idea of what was wrong: I really hated the title and introduction pages.  The pages were a wall of journaling cards and photos.  Going further into the album, I had some pages that worked well in the pocket page format, others looked just as off as the title and introduction pages.  

This time, when I sat down to brood, I fell asleep.  After a nice nap, then went back to the album, and started tearing apart the pages I didn’t like.  I made a pile for each page.  Next, I went to my paper stash, and started pulling out 12 x 12 papers I might want to use. 

I thought about my audience; I was the primary audience and my kids might be a secondary audience.  I didn’t need to build up a detailed story for each page, just memories and funny things that happened because the book was just for me.

I went to the title page stack and purged about half of what I had, keeping my audience in mind.  I did the same for the introduction stack.  I grabbed some 12 x 12 paper and started working on the layouts for each page.  In about an hour, I had re-completed both pages, and decided they were good enough.

I went back to the next page’s stack, and decided what I wanted to say.  I purged the stack, grabbed some paper, and rummaged for embellishments.  A little trimming, some re-writing, and I had another page done.  I had found a groove.

There were four pocket pages that I kept intact, and I move pictures around in four more pockets, consolidating them to two pages.  I made one more 12 x 12 layout, and the first trip was finished.  The pages fit together, even the mix of pocket pages and 12 x 12 layouts.  It was a relief to see it all together in the album.

I had initially felt like I was wasting my Finishing Day time, just sitting around feeling bad about the project.  I needed the time to sit and think and brood.  I think I was also mourning the state the project had been in, and that pocket pages really don’t make me happy at all.  I had to process that taking things apart would be an investment in my project, not a step backwards.  I liked the outcome and felt much better about the project.

I’m looking forward to working on the refresh of trip two this weekend.  I’ll follow the process I used for trip one:  page evaluation, deconstruction, purge, and reconstruction.  I don’t think I’ll need as much brooding time.

Opinion

Trigger Warning: discusses gun use, regulation, and may contain a swear word or two.

I saw this gem on Facebook this morning, prefaced by a well-thought out introduction from someone I respect.

Growing up, there were guns in my house. Hunting rifles my dad used when hunting with Grandpa. A 22 and a 12 gauge. In target practice on a piece of property the family owned, I shot both types of guns. I saw that either gun effectively dispatched pocket gophers, the main vermin in the area.

Many friends are or were deer hunters. Again, a 22 or a 12 gauge was the gun of choice. They spent many boring hours in stands, waiting for the right shot. One friend hunted with a bow and arrow; his hunting story were epic tales of pursuit of his targeted animal and the hard work it took to make a kill. He also made it a point to never go out when it was rifle season, because “there were too many drunk idiots out there with guns”.

For all of these hunters, the goals of hunting were to make a clean kill to reduce the suffering of the animal, and bring home meat to the family.

To accomplish that goal, real hunters only need a 22 or a 12 gauge shot gun. Or if you want to be a real badass, you’ll use a bow and arrow to go after a deer. If you have vermin to remove from your property, again a 22 or 12 gauge will work.

Automatic weapons like AK-47s and AR-15s are only built to kill people, not animals you intend to eat. And really, do you need a magazine of 30+ bullets to take down a deer? Because, if you do, you really suck as a hunter.

Need to “blow something up” or need an automatic weapon to get rid of your property’s vermin? You’ve got a serious executive functioning problem and shouldn’t own a gun. Period.

I don’t believe the bullshit that “all guns will be banned”. You know why? Because only the people-splattering guns of war will be restricted.

There are WAY more responsible hunters out there, using non-automatic weapons to do their hunting. They don’t need their weapons banned. Licensed, background check, liability insurance secured, yes (I’d also check for DUI/DWI offenses and domestic abuse allegations, if I had my druthers). Responsible gun owners will go through the paperwork to be authorized to pursuit their sport.

Those requirements need to be in place because irresponsible gun owners have ruined the sport of hunting. Politicians have taken the blood money from the NRA and gun manufacturers. The public needs to be protected from those idiots. The NRA also need to go back to their original purpose, a gun safety and the promotion of rifle marksmanship, instead of the leadership trying to line their pockets and line the pockets of legislators to promote their financial and power agendas.

How Scrapbooking Projects Really Work

One Saturday morning, my friend Natalie and I went on a riff about the actual steps in a large scrapbooking project. We’ve both done our fair share of large projects; there’s some serious experience behind these words.

Now, for your amusement:

The Twelve Stages of a Large Scrapbooking Project

  1. Map out project and start chronologically creating pages.
  2. Get bored with the next chronological part of the project, and start skipping around to more interesting stories.
  3. Get stuck, lose motivation to work on project.
  4. Complain about the project. A lot.
  5. Find inspiration, get your mojo back and charge through the project until you have just 5 to 10% of it left.
  6. Complain that “the project will never end”.
  7. Procrastinate by doing the laundry and the dishes, or anything else but the project.
  8. Dream about the next project and how it will be SO MUCH EASIER to finish.
  9. Come up with a plan to tackle those last stories.
  10. Execute plan; post “I only have X more layouts/pages to go” every time you finish a layout.
  11. Finish project and celebrate!
  12. Collapse into a heap of exhausted creativity, or charge immediately into the next project.

And Suddenly, It’s Summer

Minnesota is doing it’s usual seasonal flip-flop, skipping seasons, and going to extremes. This week, we’re roaring into Summer. A suitable greeting for Rachel, who came home from college yesterday for the summer. Here it is!!

I really enjoy May and early June. It’s all so changeable and things start greening up from the rain. Speaking of rain , The weather radio has been blasting severe thunderstorm watches and warnings since 7am (it’s 10 am now). Today’s high will be 78, and the highs the rest of the week are 75, 84, 89, 78, and 74.

And on that changeability theme, of course next week it shifts back to cool spring weather in the low 60s. On the positive side, that’s the perfect temperatures to do outdoor work.

The deck and front porch are all ready for summer. I am going to gut through the 80 degree temps and resist the urge to install the bedroom air conditioner yet. With all the work I did on the front porch, I actually have a sleeping porch to retreat to when it’s too hot in the 2nd floor bedroom.

The absolutely best part is the lack of wind migraines. It’s been really windy the last day or two here. But I’ve noticed that when it gets hot or very cold, the wind doesn’t trigger a migraine.

I have a lot to enjoy and look forward to in this changeable season.

April 2022 Organization Journey

April 1st – 15th

I continue to keep up with my Book of Me and Layer on Layer layouts.  I finished my Portlandia album and completed the March update.  I consider this goal complete.  Yeah!

I moved the serger into its new location.  I don’t know if it works, but I also found a sewing center not too far from me that does maintenance on both of my sewing machines and the serger.

No progress here at all.  I did most of my class work and reading in the morning, but I’ve changed my schedule around a bit in the morning.  I need to revisit my educational projects. 

May 2nd Update

Truth be told, I haven’t made much progress with my Organization journey since I last posted.  It took a bit to get my routine back.  It’s still not back all the way.  For example, my Daily Mise is more like a Weekly Mise right now.  But I am determined to get back on track this week.

For the items I still had outstanding, I did get my random layouts filed back into my yearly system, plus I made another album I call The 90’s.  Not too many layouts there, but things have a home.

I have not purged my scrapbook magazines, and I have not added more graphic design classes.  I will start the magazine purge this week, now that I have the east side of my front porch all cleaned up.  I did that Friday.  Here’s a picture:

Once you get past the ladders and lumber, it’s a really nice space.  I look forward to using it while it is still too cold to be out on the deck.

I am very proud of all the progress I made these last two months. Time to put major organization to rest until next year.

Process Post:  Shimelle’s Layer on Layer on Layer, Class #8 – Stamping

When I first watched this video, my thought was “Oh boy.”  I’m not one to stamp on my layout, but I have been known to stamp and precision cut images to use in a layout.  I decided to pass over this lesson and work on the doilies layout instead.

When I finished with all the videos, I kept coming back to this stamping lesson.  I had a cute set of photography stamps designed by Brandi Kincaid, and I had been thinking about creating a layout about my beginnings in sports photography.  I set to work.

I couldn’t find the first sports photo I took in 1972, so that had to go to the list of things to journal about.  I researched the name of my first camera — that also was in the journaling list.

I knew I needed to convert the lesson to a two page layout because of the size of pictures I wanted to include.  I searched through the photos I had taken at my daughters’ gymnastics meets over the years.  I picked four images, including the first stop-action image that I had really liked and looked good.  Then I found three images from my Vikings photos that I had been shocked to capture.  A little Vicki Boutin background paper from Color Story and Color Kaleidoscope finished the photo mats.  Now to the hard part, the stamps.

I pulled out the Brandi Kincaid set, stamped some images, personalized them, and did my least favorite thing in the world:  precision cutting.  I wished my precision cutting friend, Candace lived next door to me to relieve me of this task.  Alas, she lives on the other side of Wisconsin from me. So I bucked up, channeled my inner Candace and cut away.

Next I searched my stamp index, looking for sports related images I was sure I had.  Struck out big time.  Search on photography key words in my index, and found the Ali Edwards Watching Story set.  A couple Everyday Explorer Co sets (Markup, Scrap It, Try Your Best) helped me realize that I didn’t want to tell a sport story as much as I was telling my personal development as a photographer.  Put that on the journaling list along with my other notes. I rounded out my stamps by pulling out all my Title Builder stamp sets and hunted down appropriate words to the new story I was going to tell.

For ink, I picked a red to match Sarah’s leotard in one of the pictures, black and purple to match Rachel’s leotards (the purple also matched well with the Vikings uniforms), and a turquoise for contrast.  I marked out my stamping region on the white cardstock and set to work, randomly stamped the larger images first, and rotating the colors among the stamps.  I worked to the smaller stamps, filling in gaps.  When that all dried, I added the photo blocks and cut images.

Journaling came easy because I had been thinking about the new story as I stamped images.  I created the journaling block with the title, and pasted it in.  I decided against using enamel dots.  Instead I used my Wink of Stella pens in clear and yellow to add stars in gaps and shine to the camera lenses.  The layout was done, it was 12:30 am, and I went to bed happy that the layout was done.  I wasn’t thrilled with the outcome, but it was another bucket list story put to bed.

When I set up to photograph the layout this morning, I was surprised by the various pieces of serendipity in the layout.  All the stamping was random, but certain words and images worked well to accent the nearby photo.  Like looking at my photos the day after a meet or a game, I was surprised by what I had captured/created.  I quite like the layout now.

My March Organizing Journey

Here it is the last day of March. I’m feeling a little achy, but also a sense of satisfaction. I dedicated March to a major decluttering and reorganizing of MY spaces: the office I am writing in, a new sewing room (oldest daughter’s former bedroom), and the long neglected front porch. I am satisfied with my progress so far, and plan to continue it into April as the last dredges of winter assail Minnesota and keep me mostly indoors.

Accomplishments

Office: I’ve been working on this little by little during the pandemic, but I shifted into high gear in late February. Taking the principles of mise-en-place to heart from the book “Work Clean” by Dan Chernas, I have decluttered, reorganized, and set up spaces to work and to scrapbook. I am finding I have more energy and desire to do my creative hobbies now.

This space is just begging me to use it to scrapbook and make cards

Sewing Room: I had made a good start on this back in November and December, but I decided to take it to the next level in March. I moved all my fabric from my office into the sewing room, and consolidated it into new storage locations. I also made my oldest daughter go through the stuff she left behind in the room: trash, keep, donate. That freed up a lot of space, especially in the closet. I purchased a set of bookshelves from Target, a knock-off of the IKEA shelves everyone loves. With some rearranging and ruthless purging of my stuff the room is a welcoming space once again.

Even a place for the dogs to sleep!

Front Porch: This has long been a dumping ground of garbage, outdoor living items, and anything people didn’t want to keep in the house. UGH. One warm day, I took some big plastic garbage bags and bellied up to the mess. I relied here on a 100 days of decluttering project lead by The Awesome Ladies Project, and Kristen’s spreadsheet (modified to meet my needs). In small chunks, it improved each day. I can now walk through the space. The Christmas items are all together. The toys are gathered and waiting for a review and purge. The outdoor items are neatly gathered.

Looking West, then Looking East

What’s Next for April

Office: Some light decluttering of tools and storage. Continue working on the principle of cleaning up promptly, and resetting the area each evening for the next day.

Sewing Room: The closet needs more help, and I’m trying to figure out if I should move my large pieces of fabric onto hangers, or some other type of storage. The sun does creep between the cracks of the doors, so I have to take into consideration possible sun damage.

Front Porch: Make cushions for the bench. Keep vacuuming and dusting. Declutter toys. Get rid of the broken Christmas lights. Improve the cushions for the outdoor furniture. Have friends over at the end of the month to celebrate the space.

I am so proud of myself for the work I’ve done, and also setting it all up in small steps so I can be successful. I am very hopeful that April will be just as productive in this spaces. It will be a huge weight lifted from my shoulders when these spaces are complete.

Here’s to April success!

“Alexander Hamilton” Book Review

Here’s what I wrote on GoodReads:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Finally finished reading “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow. It is a VERY good book, full of detail of the behind the scenes machinations of the early republic. I could see the foundation of some of today’s political idiocy especially during the Adams and Jefferson administrations.

I’ll never think of the founding fathers in the same way again. They were all putzes. George Washington fared the best, but sometimes I wanted to yell at him too. Adams was insane, Madison a lackey to Jefferson, and Jefferson and Monroe were scoundrels. Hamilton was definitely full of himself and foisted his opinion on everyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not. How the hell they created a functional government in those early days was nothing short of a miracle.

Also, in the musical “Hamilton”, Lin-Manuel Miranda had a MUCH kinder treatment of Aaron Burr. Way kinder than the real Aaron Burr deserved. It was interesting to learn how much of a self-important jerk Burr was.

If you want to have your suburban, watered-down, high school American history knowledge shoved to the wayside, this is the book you need to read. I highly recommend it.



View all my reviews

Graphic Design Desire

Since grad school (turn of the millennium) with the encouragement from two of my profs, I’ve been trying to educate myself about graphic design.  It’s been hit or miss, due to time and other constraints.  Also, everything seemed to be a college or certificate courses.  When Cathy Zielske burst on the scene, I was able to learn more from her books and blog posts.  But I always yearned to go deeper. I just didn’t have the time needed to do to the digging to piece together resources for further study.

When I taught web design at a local university in the early 2010s, more books and scholarly articles were published about user experience and design.  Although those resources were focused on creating web sites and web content, they also had general graphic design principles that I could glean. Again, I just needed the time to read, digest, and practice what I found.  But that time was hard to find while holding down two jobs.  And time just got more precious with job and family changes.  I couldn’t do it.

I have the time now that I’m retired.   And I’m still interested in design, looking to improve my scrapbook pages.  There’s also been an increase in the amount of information that can be found online, in books, and in courses that are less technical and software specific.  It’s time to put my student hat back on again.

I’ve completed one course on Udemy related to beginning graphic design. It reinforced some of my gut feelings about design, and brought me the terminology and theory to back up my guts.

I’m in a second course now that uses the specific software I create with — the Corel suite — to tackle modern print design. I’m learning so much about my tool of choice and enjoying the return to print design.

My next Udemy course will be about graphic design in Canva. Not that I’m planning to become a Canva guru. But I’ve found through the first Udemy course that the technology/program does not influence or improve the underpinnings of good graphic design. It’s just a means to display your design knowledge. You could be a crap designer and an Adobe suite expert.

I’m excited about this next phase of my creative life, and putting to practice what I am studying. For example, overhauling the look of this site! But that’s for another day when I figure out more about the modern WordPress experience.