So

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I am just in the midst of a crisis right now. I am fine, my immediate family is fine, but I have things I need to take care of right now. I will be back sometime after the 15th.

Exploding Circle Album

Someone mentioned an Exploding Circle album on a scrapbooking website the other day. I thought it sounded interesting, so I Googled it and found this easy-to-follow tutorial.
I assembled some supplies, picked up some Debbie Mumm fall themed-papers and a little ribbon, and got to work. (Note to self: your aversion to orange and all things autumn did not serve you well in this instance. Please try to live in harmony with all seasons and colors so that emergency internet coupon searches and trips to JoAnn fabrics will not be necessary in the future.)
Above is the album when it is closed.

I planned it to be a keepsake of this Thanksgiving for a friend. She can either keep it or give it as a hostess gift. The numbers on the small brown rectangles correspond with tan rectangles I have cut for each spot (they're all different sizes) so that each person can write something they're thankful for and they can then be mounted on the mats. The squares are all the same size and correspond with tan squares for the same purpose or to mat photos. The little orange plastic tag hanging from the flower says "together" and I think it's from Doodlebug Designs. The orange rhinestones are from a multicolored pack from Michaels, the Thanksgiving paper is from Die Cuts With A View and the vegetable paper is Debbie Mumm.

The scalloped circles were cut with my Silhouette (love that thing! Love it!).






This was a fun project and went WAY out of the norm for me in terms of colors. Thanks to Sarah at Paper Tree for a great tutorial and a really cool hostess gift for Thanksgiving!

Circle Journal, month 5

These are the pages I did for Karry's Circle Journal. Her theme was "What I Love/Can't Live Without it!" Kind of a no-brainer for me. Books have been so important to me as long as I can remember. I cut the title on the Silhouette (can you hear the Heavenly choir every time I type that? Listen. Silhouette. Do you hear it?). Decided to use the negative image rather than the cutout letters (partly because it is a pain to put all those tiny pieces in my little Xyron to make them sticky.) I just printed images of some of my favorite books (old ones and more recent reads), and mounted it all on plain white paper that I printed with some favorite quotes. The photo was taken in my bedroom next to the big Expedit bookcase by Evan. Nice job, huh?

The CJ group is in a bit of a muddle right now. Several people are trying to get caught up and that leaves me (for a week or two, anyway) without a book. And my book is MIA right now. It seems it escaped from its Priority Mail box and got lost. How on earth it could just fall out of one of those boxes is beyond me, but whatever. Anyway, it makes it kind of difficult to file claims for stuff because the item is owned by one person but was being mailed from another person to a third party. Yeah, try explaining that without sounding crazy. And no, we don't insure these because it's too hard to place a value on them and it just adds to the expense, so Delivery Confirmation is all we do.

So it was in bubble wrap and inside a plastic zip top bag. It has my name and address on a label on the inside cover and a claim is being filed to try to recover it.

Fortunately it seems everyone in the group who has already had the book is willing to recreate their pages if I end up having to replace it. In the meantime, prayers to St. Anthony or the deity of your choice or a few good vibes tossed into the universe on my behalf would be appreciated.

In which three months goes by thisfast.

Our dear friends from the Czech Republic are winging their way home this evening. They arrived in mid-July and we have really tried to spend as much time together as possible.

In 2001, when Evan was 2, he befriended a little boy in his preschool class. Every day he came home from preschool and said he played with a little boy with an odd name. When I asked the teacher about it, she said, "Oh yes! The little boy doesn't speak much English but Evan seems to understand him and they communicate quite well." Which was odd, but when kids at 2 and 3 have such an affinity for each other, you shouldn't question it.

So I invited their family to spend Thanksgiving with our family, and we all became fast friends.

In 2004 we moved to California just before they went back to Czech so the dramatic change in scenery and routine made it easier, I think, to adjust to not having them around.

This time, they've been here 3 months and now they're gone, and well, we're still here.

Since they've been here we've made connections with friends we had through them previously and met some new people, and I think this time we will all make a more concerted effort to stay connected. I am incredibly grateful for all of the friendships, but right now my heart is heavy.

Farewell, friends. Our life is infinitely richer because you are in it, and I can't wait to see you again.

I was wrong, thank goodness

It was not H1N1. Garrett and Spence were back at school Tuesday, both feeling fine. Spencer never had a fever at all, Garrett just a slight one on Sunday afternoon around 4, that magical hour when kids' temps spike for some unknown reason.

Evan was fever-free when he woke up yesterday but since he had run a fever well into Monday evening I kept him home one more day.

All that to explain that it wasn't H1N1; just a miserable cold (or maybe even 2 different viruses). For which I am most grateful. I felt a little off Sunday and Monday, but not terrible, and other than a runny nose and chapped hands from all the handwashing, I am fine now, too.

Garrett and Rob are at the fall camping trip for school, Evan went back to school this morning cheerfully (he was pretty bored yesterday), and I put up some freezer corn today.

Some of the family drama has been resolved; the most immediate source of my distress had been a family member calling me up to 6 times a day wanting assistance with a situation I had no control over and could not help with. The calls ranged from tearful to angry to "I deserve a call back; at least you can do that for me" and, well, I couldn't. Couldn't do anything and knew that once I said that we would go right to angry again, and that the calls would continue because, well, said family member's memory is not what it used to be.

Anyway, that person no longer has the ability to make long distance phone calls and my stress level is greatly reduced. I still check the caller ID before answering the phone but it's mostly force of habit from screening calls for a month. Now I just have to delete all 40 minutes of the messages from the voice mail box.

I am still working on layouts for the Book of Me and I am *almost* done with the latest circle journal layout (it just needs a photo of me), so will be posting some of that stuff soon.

The sun is shining and I feel like I'm getting a into a bit of a groove just in time for fall to really hit. It's nice.