Feline Friday

Believe it or not, our kitties have not had a cat tree until recently. I didn't want one of the huge carpeted trees or one that was too small to be functional, so I just never purchased one for them. But after I saw all the fun that Bailey's kitty was having with her cat tree, I decided to purchase the same one. It's a little more streamlined than some of the other cat trees on the market, and it's not too heavy to move around. I just knew that after all these years of being "deprived", the girls would love it! 

 But guess what? They rarely sit on it at all! I've sprinkled it with catnip, moved it from place to place, and festooned it with soft blankies, but they strangely have no interest in it. This makes no sense at all to me, especially since both of them like being up on high places.

 

 But the step ladder? They absolutely LOVE the ladder, so I recently had Spouse bring it in so they could play on it. Although it had been awhile, Lily wasted no time in hoisting her ample curves up to the very top platform.

 

 So then I got the very clever idea of placing the cat tree next to the ladder to create a larger "gymnasium". I thought that maybe they'd climb onto the cat tree whilst playing on the ladder and see how wonderful it really is.

You can see how well that strategy worked! :)

 

jp

Heritage Albums: More Pages Done

I vowed this would be the year I would focus on my scrapbooking and so far, I'm happy to report that I've stuck with it. I have been slowly working away at adding photos to the first of my heritage albums (see my previous post HERE), starting with my paternal grandpa's side of the family for which I have fewer photos. I'm a firm believer in beginning any project with the "low-hanging fruit" -- the easy stuff! 

As you can see, I'm keeping the pages very simple.

I am also adding in some memorabilia -- some original, some copies. Some of the items Grandma saved are probably better suited for her genealogy albums which I also have.

I've started with the larger professional photos and have recently been working on the section with my grandparents. As it turns out, I have a lot of really nice photos of them. After my grandparents sold their farm and moved into town, they spent 17 years working at a local publishing company.

 

I found some really interesting photos of my grandparents in their workplace, which has to be unusual. I am guessing that since they worked for a publishing company, such photos were more commonplace. I have several photos of Grandpa in his department.

And that's my grandma over at the left of this photo. As you can see, I'm keeping things very, very simple with this album.

 Additional photos of the workplace fit in 8.5x11 sleeves.

I have photos from their 5-year anniversary and from their retirement, too.

All of these mixed size sleeves fit perfectly into the album -- another plus for 3-ring binders! I'm totally OK with mixing up the page sizes.

 Once I finish the larger items, I will turn my attention to this mixed up box of snapshots. This will be far more challenging!

 This heritage project is very important to me and I'm happy to see it start coming together!

jp

Scrapbooking: Is it Possible to Catch Up?

When I started this album conversion process, I knew it was going to be tedious but let me just say....

IT IS REALLY TEDIOUS.

As I have sorted through pictures and scrapbooks, I'm painfully aware that I left tons of pages undone in the past. I just didn't make time for scrapbooking as regularly as I should have (that's still a problem...) and as a result, there are years with few pages done. 

So I'm asking myself: Is it even possible to catch up with this backlog of scrapbooking?

I'm keeping the faith that the answer is YES! The first step for me is to figure out what actually needs to be scrapbooked -- ASSESS THE PROBLEM! These two boxes were full of photos from 2003, a year when I apparently did very little scrapbooking. After I removed the duplicates, everything fit into one box...YAY! 

 

Next I will go through the scrapbook and check to see which of these photos are already in there, so this mass (mess?) of photos will reduce in size. THEN I'll be able to start adding them to the album.

This is a LOT of duplicate photos I didn't need to be storing -- and for just one year! Multiply this by 20+ years of photos and you'll begin to see the scope of the problem. Those duplicate photos are making my backlog, while daunting, seem even worse than it is!

So to "catch up", I'm going through each year to see what still needs to be completed and get those pages in the albums quickly. And I mean that. No elaborate layouts shall be done. Just simple pages or photos slipped into pocket pages.

Here's one thing I've learned so far:

 My perspective on photos has changed. Back then, I excluded photos that seemed "ordinary". Now, with the passage of time, those everyday photos take on new meaning as they represent a particular point in our lives. I also excluded photos of my parents and their home, I guess because they were also very "ordinary" photos and at that point in time I felt like my parents would be around forever. Obviously now that they're gone and the house is sold, those photos are very special to me.

So those are the types of photos I added to the album. To do this, I quickly made four "traditional" 12x12 pages. Nothing fancy at all. One page features photos Bailey took at that young age with her new camera on a trip to the zoo (I knew there was a reason I'd bought that zoo paper!). The other three use "everyday" snapshots that I really like now, so I made simple layouts with journaling from my perspective today.

 I just tucked the remainder of the photos into 4x6 pockets and added strips of journaling. Here is something I didn't think about which has been a bit of a pain: Back in those days, printed photos were 3.5x5. Pocket pages are 4x6, so each of those smaller photos has to be adhered to a 4x6 piece of cardstock to fit in the pocket. Going forward when my prints are 4x6, this problem will happily go away!

 To make this process go quickly, I just cut up a stack of 4x6 cards in kraft and black to use for mounting. I grabbed my cupcake tin full of small doodads to use as embellishments if needed. Then I sat down at the computer and typed up very quick journaling strips using text boxes. I printed them, cut them apart, then added them to the photo pockets.

These are the pocket pages I'll be adding to my 2001 albums. I'll just slip them in between traditional layouts in rough chronological order. Nothing fancy, but at least they're in the album and not in the photo box!

So in answer to my question (Is it possible to catch up?), I think the answer is yes, if you're willing to pick away at it. Here's what seems to be working for me:

1) Using 3-ring binders which allow you to add and move pages easily.
2) Using pocket pages, which allow you to quickly add those extra photos to the album without making traditional scrapbook pages for all of them.

But I'll be honest, this project is going to take quite awhile. It's the kind of thing that I'll have to leave out and just pick away at over time.

Are you undertaking a similar project? What has worked for you? If you're bogged down, I hope some of what's working for me may work for you!

jp

Feline Friday: Tinsel, Strong and Brave

 

Lately when I think about Tinsel (which is pretty much all the time), the words "strong" and "brave" come to mind. I know that she doesn't understand in human terms what is going on, but it's obvious that she knows something is not quite right. Yet she soldiers on and keeps doing what she wants to do. That, to me, is the very definition of strong. 

In this photo, you can see how her sweet little face is distended due to the tumor. :(

 

 I've mentioned previously that with the growth of the tumor, her mouth doesn't fit together quite right on one side. So saliva that would normally stay in her mouth sometimes comes out. At first, this startled her. Now, she bravely lets me dab it away with a tissue. She even lets me wipe her face and chest with a warm, wet washcloth. These are things that Tinsel would never have allowed in the past. Now she bravely lets me tend to her needs.

Last week I took Tinsel in for a check up and the vet encouraged us to keep doing what we're doing as long as she is able. So we've had another pretty good week filled with mostly good days.

She checked out the arrival of spring from her favorite viewing spot in the dining room. This weekend will be nice and clear so we can go back outside for another walk.

 

  She bravely tried an ever-changing array of foods (some just once!) as her mama will do just about anything to get her to eat.

Room service is also available 24-7! Her choice on this particular evening was the deli ham. Thank goodness for deli ham.

 

 She found some soft towels in the closet.

She enjoyed daily playtime. When Tinsel wants to play, she just sits down next to her toys until her staff notices. :)

She enjoyed a new vantage point perched on a stool by the front door.

As always, she helped me change the bed.

 She continues to be quite active, jumping up on the fireplace with one goal in mind...

 ...to look out this window!

And she made plenty of biscuits on her mama's lap, something she has rarely done in the past. Sweet Tinsel, strong and brave.

 

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

-Charles Dickens

Scrapbooking: So Many Pictures!

Do you ever have a period of time when you want to be productive but your brain power is completely spent? That was me last night. I was ready for a mindless task! So I pulled out some boxes of potentially unscrapbooked photos and thought I'd at least remove the duplicates so I'd have a better idea of how many photos need to be added to my 3-ring binder scrapbooks.

If you recall (and I know this is riveting!!!), I spent last week mired in 2001. Last night I worked ahead on two boxes of photos from 2002. This task turned out to take a little more brain power than I anticipated, but I have to say I'm super-motivated to continue after the progress I made!

I spread out on the couch with two boxes of photos and the lone scrapbook (plus a vacation album) from 2002. There would normally be at least two scrapbooks completed for a given year, so I suspected that there were LOTS of events in those photo boxes which haven't been scrapbooked yet. That turned out to be true. For some unknown reason, I really jumped around in 2002 with my scrapbooking, leaving LOTS of events undone.

My photos are organized in small boxes with monthly tabs which made it easy to go month by month, removing one month at a time. My goals were simple:

1) If the photo is in the scrapbook, the duplicate in the box gets recycled.

2) If the event has not yet been scrapbooked, then I'll keep only one set of photos and recycle the duplicates.

By doing these two things, I hoped to get a better handle on exactly HOW MUCH needs to be scrapbooked for those years. I'll use pocket pages to quickly add those photos to the scrapbook.

 GUYS: Here's how exciting this is! I started with TWO boxes of photos for 2002, and by the time I was done, I was left with HALF of one box! This means that while I still have lots of photos to add to the albums, I have FAR FEWER than one would think given the two very full boxes I had at the start.

Look at this box of duplicate photos. It weighs even more than Lily! :) This represents duplicates from only 2001 and 2002 -- only two years! SERIOUSLY, those photos were taking up a lot of space...and they were sucking the motivation right out of me!

Before I do any more sorting like this, I'm going stop and put my 2001 and 2002 photos into pocket pages and get them into the albums, along with the memorabilia I've kept for those years. Then I'll proceed to the next year in the same fashion. 

What would it feel like to have this photo mess under control? It's going to be great! It may be premature to say this, but I feel like I might be on the tiniest little bit of a roll!

jp

Scrapbooking: The Big Question

I had some time set aside yesterday to work on my album conversion process and made really good progress! My goals in starting this project are listed below for my own frequent reference, so I remember why the heck I'm putting myself through this:

** All photos in this house need to be in some type of album, not unmarked in a box. 

** OK, I'll accept photos in a box if they're in some semblance of order. 

** And duplicate photos which have already been scrapbooked shall be recycled. 

** Furthermore, boxes of memorabilia saved for the scrapbooks shall actually be put in the scrapbooks.

** The multiple boxes of school papers hidden in the basement shall be dealt with at a later time (should I survive this project!) and reduced into their own binders.

** The myriad cat layouts shall be incorporated into the chronological scrapbooks.

To accomplish these goals, I am converting my chronological post-bound albums to 3-ring binders. Binders Make All Such Things Possible!

As I work on this project, I'm keeping my recycle bin full as a visual motivator!

 

My random-but-not-random starting point is 2001, which is the oldest album I converted. After more sorting and double-checking, I finally cleared out the entire photo box. This was cause for celebration! I ran to Starbucks for a latte because I knew it was going to be a late but productive evening.

 

 

 I set aside a few photos that need to be scrapbooked in one form or another and thought I was ready to tackle those pesky memorabilia files. 

 But then a very scary question came to mind -- and I'm sure it's one that many of my fellow scrapbookers know well...

 

ARE THERE MORE PHOTOS SOMEWHERE ELSE?

When I stopped to think about it, I knew the answer to that question, but I had buried it deep in that murky part of my mind which contains Things I Don't Want to Think About.

So I ventured upstairs and confirmed my fears...YIKES! 

There was the box, in all of its unsorted glory. I know this well and say it often: Before you can scrapbook confidently, you have to have your photos in order and accessible!

"How did this happen?", you may (or may not) be asking. Well, I'll tell you. Photo organization has always been important to me. My printed photos are kept in small boxes and indexed with dates and events. 

 But things went awry a few years back when I brought home massive amounts of unorganized photos from my parents' house. Some of those photos were duplicates of my own photos, and others were pictures my mom took.  A few years later, I brought home another large load of photos from my grandma's house, further exacerbating the problem. Long story short: Those extra photos never made it to my organization system. I vaguely remember starting to work on it but giving up in discouragement.

HEAVY SIGH.

So I made myself a pile of index cards with All The Dates and began sorting. Not how I planned to spend the evening but hey, it needed to be done. I turned on the TV and got to work.

 

I got no help from my helper who was busy tending to her personal hygiene!

 

Two basketball games later, I finally made it through the entire box, setting aside a good chunk of photos with no dates, and felt pretty good about my accomplishment.

 

Look at these nicely organized photos! I did a brief happy dance...

 

  but then the question came to mind again:

ARE THERE MORE PHOTOS SOMEWHERE ELSE?

 And unfortunately, the answer was yes! OH, NO!!! There was indeed another box, partially filled with unsorted photos from the time periods I'll be working on.

So the photo sorting continued way into the night. My latte was gone and my helper had bathed all possible body parts.

I eventually made it through all of those photos but I now have a very big box of undated photos that still must be sorted. The takeaway lesson here is if you're printing photos, put the date on the back!

And the other takeaway lesson is this: HAVE ONE ORGANIZATION SYSTEM. If you choose to sort photos chronologically, then pull them all together to do so. If you separate photos by subject, make sure you have all of your subject photos in one place.

I'm reminding myself that while daunting, this is just small detour and taking care of this Bad Photo Situation now will help me throughout the rest of the process. My helper and I shall not be deterred in getting all of this under control!

jp