Thread: Everyday Chatting & Waffling {2020} Let's get to know each other!

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It seems so funny and lonely to be starting a new thread when our old one has lots of lovely chatter. I have asked Ginger to close it off so we remember to come to this one.

I hope everyone's new year is starting out wonderfully :) We stayed up, welcomed the New Year at home, as is our tradition. Then I got a call this morning from a good friend. The airport shuttle she ordered never came. The company no longer operates in California and she needed a ride to the airport. SO - 6am I was up and out the door to take her to the airport. She is always willing to do things for us, it was my pleasure to do something nice back.

Still scrapping frantically, doing video slides for my cousin's memorial service. I may actually post some one of these days :)
 
Happy New Year everyone!
Lynnie - what a good friend you are, getting up and out so early to help your friend.

I fell asleep on the couch last night around 11:30 so hubs woke me up at 12:30 to say happy new years to me and off to bed I went. Woke up at 7:30 and have enjoyed my book and coffee to start off the new year (now reading The Family Upstairs). I'll start taking the tree/decorations down soon, take Taz out for a long walk and then home to do a quick weightlifting session (want to start the year off right, getting back into a routine). I'll scrap later, do some menu planning for the next wk or two and then we'll watch a few movies later. Hubs goes back to work tomorrow but I'm off until Monday so will spend some time working on tax stuff and getting the house cleaned up.

Hope you all had a wonderful NYE and that today is the start of a wonderful year ahead for everyone!
 
Family has been here for over a week and will be here for another 4 or 5 days. Haven't got much scrapping done but have all pictures sorted for last year and my journal notes all written to make it easier to catch up when they go home. We have had so much fun with them here. Hope everyone has the best new year with less trials.
 
Oh, Lynnie! She must have ordered Super Shuttle. I just saw they were discontinuing on the news the other night. I have never taken them, but I have thought about it. I guess thinking about it is probably why they aren't in business. I am going to get caught up on my planning for 2020 today, go to the gym and maybe hit up Michael's.
 
I rolled out of bed early this afternoon, with nothing more than a sleep hangover, I wasn't even up all that late last night. I have been fighting a fever and lung thing for a week now. It is exhausting me. My heartrate that never gets over about 40-45 bpm has been spiking close to 80 off and on all week.

My girl came home last night. She had been away participating in a program debating at the Alberta legislature sind Boxing Day, she loved it and says she grew so much through the process. Next year when she attends she will be minister of education.

Happy New Year everyone.
 
My New Year resolve is to try to spend more time in this chat thread. It is becoming reminiscent of a well loved huge chat thread that Lynnie and I were part of in our old digi home.

Rae, I read your post, and, being an avid reader, I of course had to check out The Family Upstairs. SO half an hour later, after reserving it on my library website and being enticed by the "more books by this author", "you might like these", "similar titles" and "people who borrowed this also borrowed..." notifications, I finally made it back here:) I am about to start reading a book called "Dry", very appropriate given the state of drought that we are in at the moment. My 18 year old grandson gave it to me for Christmas knowing how much I enjoy apocalyptic survival themes. He read it and enjoyed it. I look forward to discussing it with him when I am done.

Our country is burning up!! So many horrific fires, many lives lost, a large number of pets and farm animals lost, so many properties lost, thousands of hectares of land and forest burnt. My cousin lost his lovely mud brick home that he had built himself over many years. Everyone got out safely but there is nothing left. The fires are not close to me, the nearest ones are now out, but we lived under a canopy of smoke for several weeks. Weather wise in my region this week will be a scorcher...over 40 degrees Celsius for the next 6 days.

Today is a nothing day for me...nothing in particular that has to be done, that is such a nice feeling. I might scrap for some of the new challenges, or I might go into town, sit in a coffee shop and read my book (that is my favourite pastime). I can justify this at the moment because we are currently being asked to reduce our use of evaporative air coolers due to the water shortage in the area. I can go sit in an airconditioned shop and save water!!! Yay!!!

Have a lovely day everyone.
 
I've had a pretty calm bunch of days. I got what I wanted for Christmas, which is nice. We went and saw the new Star Wars movie, which was great, IMHO. I've had lots of days with family, friends, fun, and food. Last night, it was just the 3 of us at home, playing games and watching a little TV until midnight. I had a nice nap earlier and now I'm hanging out online for a bit. Gonna get to bed a bit early tonight, I hope. Even with the nap I feel blah. :)
 
This year I would like to try to be a bigger part of this wonderful community and that is why I am here right now.

My brother and nieces headed back to Indiana today after spending a week down here. I always hate to see them go because I love them so very much. The kids are still home until Sunday so that they can get back to school on Monday and me, I go back to work tomorrow and I am picking up as much extra time as I can because my finances are hurting, bad.

As for Christmas, all things considered, it was pretty good. Everyone was happy with those things that I was able to get for them and the kids are accepting of the fact that they have to wait a little bit for the computers that they were both hoping for. I got a weighted blanket from my brother, which is my favorite gift. I have wanted one of those forever and I can tell you that it is definitely helping me to sleep better.
 
Hi everyone, NYE was fun for me and MOM, took her to the casino in the afternoon and for an early dinner. She was beaming ear to ear! In the evening I went to bed by 10...party pooper!

I am going to try and be her more often, I really enjoy getting to know everyone just a little better.

Thanks Lynnie for putting this thread together for 2020.

For now, Happy New Year!
 
Good morning, everyone! I am enjoying my last day off before starting work again on Monday. Where did the time go??? The days around Xmas and New Years just flew by. I've enjoyed my time off, watched a ton of movies, binged some series with hubs at night, read a few books and went for long walks with Taz. I managed to get some scrapping done but not as much as I thought I would b/c hubs was home too so we hung out a lot rather than me going downstairs to scrap.

This wkend is busy with family time and getting tax papers in order. I'll also be choosing recipes and meal planning for at least the next couple of wks and maybe for the month. I will leave some days open and may switch a few meals around but at least it'll give me a plan to roughly follow. I'm going to put recipes or quick meal ideas into a calendar along with where the recipe is (online, pinterest board, cookbook, etc).
 
Hello everyone! Well, NYE was very quite. NY day we spent packing up Christmas and putting it all back in the attic. I am now out at the lake for a weekend of puzzling, scrapbooking/photography, and working on some of my stained glass. I have a stained glass Santa wreath that I cut out and now have to grind, foil, and solder. (Doubt all of those steps will happen this weekend.)

I am back scrapbooking after a two year hiatus. Two years ago I was in an intensive Montessori education training program for a year that took over my life and everything else dropped and vanished! Last year I finally made the effort to further my photography skills. I did a wedding and have been doing several family photo sessions. I enjoy the family photo stuff but I am still much more comfortable with nature! I even joined two photography groups which were probably the highlight of last year, I am making so many wonderful local photography contacts and am meeting people in all levels and interest in photography that just want to go out and shoot!

So this year I want to continue with my path I am on with Photography and get back into my scrapbooking. I love the GS community and am excited to be back at it!
 
These last couple of days have been crazy with work and I don't really mean in a busy way. LOL. Got up yesterday to go to my store and sat there for an hour and the people at the store never showed up so I ended up getting paid to do nothing for two hours and then went and helped the boss out with some things at the office. Today I had just a little store that only took a couple hours then took a nap.

Took Paul out to my house for a few hours and brought him back home and now waiting for Kathryn and my mom to get home so we can cook dinner. Starting tomorrow things at work are going to be crazy in a different way because I am trying to pick up as many hours as I possibly can, I need the money badly.
 
Elynnia said:
Hello everyone! Well, NYE was very quite. NY day we spent packing up Christmas and putting it all back in the attic. I am now out at the lake for a weekend of puzzling, scrapbooking/photography, and working on some of my stained glass. I have a stained glass Santa wreath that I cut out and now have to grind, foil, and solder. (Doubt all of those steps will happen this weekend.)

I am back scrapbooking after a two year hiatus. Two years ago I was in an intensive Montessori education training program for a year that took over my life and everything else dropped and vanished! Last year I finally made the effort to further my photography skills. I did a wedding and have been doing several family photo sessions. I enjoy the family photo stuff but I am still much more comfortable with nature! I even joined two photography groups which were probably the highlight of last year, I am making so many wonderful local photography contacts and am meeting people in all levels and interest in photography that just want to go out and shoot!

So this year I want to continue with my path I am on with Photography and get back into my scrapbooking. I love the GS community and am excited to be back at it!
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And I am glad you have come here to settle back in and chat! Our Christmas is still up and I am READY to get it all down. My husband is bringing in the boxes today and we are going to have a marathon packing session. It takes DAYS to get it all down. I have a small place, but we go way overboard for Christmas.

I love photography also, but I am not that great a photographer. I think when I retire, I will be bumping up those skills :) I generally have a decent sense of composition, but my technical skills are terrible. I often shoot with manual settings, but I am not good at getting really crisp pictures.

Now we need to see some of those lovely pictures scrapped :)

bcgal00 said:
Good morning, everyone! I am enjoying my last day off before starting work again on Monday. Where did the time go??? The days around Xmas and New Years just flew by. I've enjoyed my time off, watched a ton of movies, binged some series with hubs at night, read a few books and went for long walks with Taz. I managed to get some scrapping done but not as much as I thought I would b/c hubs was home too so we hung out a lot rather than me going downstairs to scrap.

This wkend is busy with family time and getting tax papers in order. I'll also be choosing recipes and meal planning for at least the next couple of wks and maybe for the month. I will leave some days open and may switch a few meals around but at least it'll give me a plan to roughly follow. I'm going to put recipes or quick meal ideas into a calendar along with where the recipe is (online, pinterest board, cookbook, etc).
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Good morning, Rae! I am glad you enjoyed your time off. I watched a lot of movies, too. We watched the "Man who Invented Christmas" the night before last, followed by "Christmas Carol" with George C. Scott. It was fun seeing the two movies in succession. Then I saw "Little Women" twice at the theatre, once with my book club and once with a friend. Then Rand and I watched the Winona Ryder version the other night. I also watched "Muppet Christmas Carol." I never thought that would be one of my favourite Christmas movies, but the dichotomy between the great acting of Michael Caine along side the Muppets is a GREAT thing to see. Plus, even after all this time, the kids still love it.

You are wonderfully organized. Do you want to come and stay at my house for a little while and get ME all organized.

dorannmwin said:
These last couple of days have been crazy with work and I don't really mean in a busy way. LOL. Got up yesterday to go to my store and sat there for an hour and the people at the store never showed up so I ended up getting paid to do nothing for two hours and then went and helped the boss out with some things at the office. Today I had just a little store that only took a couple hours then took a nap.

Took Paul out to my house for a few hours and brought him back home and now waiting for Kathryn and my mom to get home so we can cook dinner. Starting tomorrow things at work are going to be crazy in a different way because I am trying to pick up as many hours as I possibly can, I need the money badly.
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You have had a rough time of it the last few years. I hope all is well with your family now and your living situation is all settled. We really downsized about 8 years ago, but before that we had a huge house and the living expenses were outrageous. I am so glad we live in a tiny place now with fewer expenses. I totally understand money worries...
 
Well, I am ready to take Christmas down and move on with my life. I totally LOVE Christmas and decorations and want them up all year until around about now... then I am over it and am ready to package them all up. Today we are starting to take it all down, but it will take about three days to get it all packaged and back into storage. Today is the day we begin, although the last light will not go out until Epiphany, which is the traditional day to take them down.

This morning I have to run to Costco to pick up some pictures for a friend. I dropped them off before Christmas and totally forgot to pick them up. I am sure they will still be there.

There is a sale on at Scrapbooks to Share, so I am going to try to upload all the layouts I have not printed yet. I try to keep them up until a sale and then print them out. They are 20% off an already good price :) I really wish I had more time, I would like to do an album for my cousin's memorial service as well as a slide show.

I still do not know when we are heading to England. Poor cousin John has been shipped around England for various forensic tests. I have never heard of that before. They can't set a date for the memorial service until he is returned to his hometown. I still can't believe he is gone. It is as though a whole part of my world has vanished. I think they will know today and brother Dave and I will book our flights.

In the meantime I am working on his memorial video. I have scrapped 197 slides and have 265 still to do. It has taken me so long because I have been scrapping templates for future use on videos. It really does help when the templates are prepared, I can do a slide in a minute or two. So I spend a long time doing the templates, then scrap whatever section I am working on.

I am enjoying working three days a week, but counting down the days until I am fully retired. I am really excited about it. It is like counting down the days to a LONG summer holiday.
 
Evening everyone. We are prepping the kids as they start school again on Monday. We all had a hand in helping Austin complete a major project that has been worked on since October. Sent it to staples and will pick up tomorrow. Woohoo. Glad to put that to bed.

Have any of you ever watched Rotten on Netflix? It’s eyeopening and I’ve learned lots, even taking into account it’s more than likely slanted. Now there is Broken. The two we watched today were about vaping and tipping furniture that kills. It was eye opening about the rape of our forests.

My daughter really doesnt like movies so we watch documentaries lots. Whereas my son would rather watch movies.
 
I can't believe winter break is almost over! Tomorrow we have teacher inservice and then on Tuesday we get our students back... I am mostly ready to get back into the swing of things.. but there is a small piece of me that wants more time off. While school is in session I find it so hard to get anything done, I come home and I am exhausted! Yesterday I spent the morning at the falls that is 30 minutes from my family's lake place. I find it so serene there. We've had a lot of rain so the falls were just roaring! Today, I head back into the city, after a stop at one of our state parks for a beginner's wildflower identification course.
 
Family has all gone home after two weeks of having my one daughter's family here. Things are quieting down. We had a great time with them. Our last time was on Friday, when we went with the family, 4 of our kids and spouses and 9 of our grandkids, to the Temple and then celebrated my husband's 79th birthday after. I had to work yesterday and will be going to church today. I was able to do a few layouts before work yesterday. I need to get caught up on my scrapbook journal as I was only able to do one or two layouts the last few weeks. I hope everyone gets to feeling better and life is good.
 
Elynnia, Welcome back to scrapbooking, not sure I could stay away that long. Your stained glass project sounds wonderful! I do hope you will share a LO on the finished project. This would be something I would love to learn wehn I retire, stained glass windows in churches are so mesmorinzing.

Dorann, Such a busy time, I do hope things work out for you at the store.

Lynnie, Your photos are always great, but I do hope you get to hone your skills when you retire....coming up soon? I love that you are pouring through those photos of John for the memorial service, so wonderful for the soul!

Sherri, Never saw those on Netflix, I rather watch movies or a series. Best of luck to your kiddos as they begin back to school.

It was back to work for me right after New Years, a short week was nice. I finallly booked my February trip to Arizona for some fun in the sun and to celebrate my hubby's 60th. The weather here (Canada) has been up and down from -40c to -3c...not too much snow but still looking forward to wearing shorts, t's and flip flops for a couple weeks. I took some time during the holidays to clean my craft room, what a disaster after all the Christmas card making so if feels good to purge a bit and tidy my supplies. I made 25 cards this year, down a bit from last year but I only sent to out of towners and family. Most of my friends don't exchange cards or gifts anymore. Christmas clean-up was a breeze as I sold my big artificial tree and put up a ceramic tree Mom made many moons ago. We go out for Christmas every year so it just made sense to downsize as 2020 is the year of cleaning and organizing to get ready for retirement in 2021.

Well off to fulfil my CT duties for this week. Hoping the new year will bring happiness and joy to you all!
 
Happy New Year to all! I'm happy for a new chatter thread. Great idea! My goal is to organize my office [my all purpose sewing, computer, crafting everything room] and rid a bunch of stuff in that 'magic closet' as my granddaughter calls it. I have so much sewing supplies and yarn to organize.
I NEED to get rid of a LOT of still paper scrapbooking supplies. Hopefully someone will want to purchase.
AND I have many many OLD computer programs: Printshop, PHotoshop Elements the first one plus 3,4,5,6,8 and 10. CS5. Print Shop Pro 3, 10 and 19. Many program books, how too with photography etc....

I'm going to advertise on a local swap and sell fb group. I'd rather things be used that trashed.
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Happy New Year to you all. I know the year is already quickly disappearing but thought I would still start with that greeting.

Lynnie, thankyou for starting this new thread this year and for continually sharing of yourself with us. I hope you hear soon about your cousins memorial so you can make the bookings needed.

My goal this year is to finish and get printed an album about my childhood. Maybe my grandchildren might enjoy knowing some of what I did as a child. I will continue with Project Life doing the monthly like last year with one page of photos and the matching page of journaling. I am yet to do all the journaling pages for last year which I think I better get started on.
 
We still don't know about Cousin John - the poor lamb did not travel this much when he was alive! Anyway, his wife said she will let my brother know as soon as we hear anything.

In the meantime, I am still working on the video. On the bright side, I do quite a few of these for multiple events and have been making reusable templates. I have come to the conclusion, however, that I REALLY wish the designers would include a picture mask for frames. I can't count how many round, circular, oblong, strange shaped masks I had to create to do this project. It would save so much time if I had a clipping mask in the shape of the photo that needed to fit in the frame, then I can just clip and go!

I went to Costco to pick up some pictures for my friend. I had mentioned in my last post. HOWEVER, when I got to the warehouse, they had no record. When she asked to see the email, I had sent it to another warehouse (which is baffling to me, it takes EFFORT to do that and I have never been to the other one!) SO I went there and STILL no record, so I resubmitted yesterday and am picking it up today. Crazy.

We have taken Christmas down and we are worn out. Maybe we need to downsize Christmas. I just want someone else to do it all. I need servants. I saw a card once on the Proverbs 31 woman that basically said "I could be that woman, if only I had servants!" I would like servants... pretty please.

Karen gets home from her England, France trip tomorrow. I am picking her up. Less than 12 hours later, she leaves for work in Mexico. I think she is sorry she left so little time between the trips. The trip did not quite turn out the way she planned and it was a lot more expensive, but I think she had a great time anyway.
 
A-M said:
Happy New Year to you all. I know the year is already quickly disappearing but thought I would still start with that greeting.

Lynnie, thankyou for starting this new thread this year and for continually sharing of yourself with us. I hope you hear soon about your cousins memorial so you can make the bookings needed.

My goal this year is to finish and get printed an album about my childhood. Maybe my grandchildren might enjoy knowing some of what I did as a child. I will continue with Project Life doing the monthly like last year with one page of photos and the matching page of journaling. I am yet to do all the journaling pages for last year which I think I better get started on.
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I can tell you that one of the best things we ever created was the story of my mother's life. We did it for her 90th birthday. It was loads of effort, but totally worth it. I have done mine through when I was about 12. Those are the years with the most stories for me, but I think I need to include more than that :)

Just heard from his wife, they do not have the pathology reports on my cousin yet, so still no go. We are ready to
 
Firstoscartgrouch said:
I’d like to get some kind of album put together for Alexis, she is graduating this year. What do mom’s usually do?
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Well, you can do a few things - you can do a chronological album of her life. I am working on that for my kids. So far they received them at age 21, 27, 36 and the last two I did not finish YET. I will!

The other you can do is a motivational one that details her strengths, accomplishments and ambitions in life, which could be a lot more artistic and you can use all your favourite pictures, not having to worry about so many from each year.

You could also take favourite poetry or song lyrics of hers growing up and scrap her pictures to those, if that would work.

You could recreate something like "Oh the Places You'll GO!" in a scrapbook for her.

You could write her life story as a children's story about her bravery and ability to overcome and wonderful writing. You could illustrate it with her pictures.

Just some ideas!
 
My daughter still has another year before she will be graduating, but I have to admit that I've been working through her childhood because my goal is to print a book(s) with all of the pages from her childhood until she graduates. And that will be her graduation present (along with as much cash as I can save up for her to have a down payment for a car).

As for me, working, working. And back to the old grind. I am still trying to work as much as I can because I know that I really need the money. Picking up open shifts, etc. It stinks that it will cost me time with my kiddos but then again, I want to be able to take a vacation with them this year and they understand that part of all of my working is trying to make sure that can happen. I already worked for almost six hours this morning and then in about an hour and a half I will be heading off to work again.
 
Good morning, ladies. The week is off to a busy start for me. Work is busy (but luckily I work at home), lots of chores around the house to do, tax stuff needs to be sorted thru, I need to get my hair trimmed and still haven't sorted thru the 2 freezers, rearranging and shorting thru it all to see what should be used up soon and to organize so that I can see what is in there. I start off on a good foot, arranging according to product and date but then I get busy and/or lazy and start shoving things in there and then it's impossible to see what is in there. So, hopefully by the end of the wkend I can say I've taken care of these chores. No time this wk but maybe I'll get my hair appt booked for next wk. I also need to get Taz into the vet, maybe on Friday.

Lynnie - I'm like you, I am sooooo looking forward to retiring. I have a few yrs left and at that time may continue to work part time but definitely not five days a week like I do now. I love my job but I just want more "me" time. Your's is coming up fast, I'm so jealous :) Yes, I would think there would be more interest in a scrapping group too. We have a couple in my area and when I retire I plan to hang out more with them. I love digi scrapping but I also like the social aspect of sitting amongst other crafters for a day or evening, just chatting and puttering with a project.

Sherri - I had heard about Rotten and haven't had a chance to look into it, to see what the episodes focus on. As long as they don't show animal cruelty I can watch but if they do, I can't. It is just too distressing. Or I might watch Broken. There's so much to watch, that it won't be anytime soon if I do decide to watch.

Elynnia - a wildflower identification course sounds like fun. If we had that around here I'd go.

Karen - how nice that you still make cards. I used to receive and give over 50-75 each Xmas but that's dwindled to only a few this yr. I haven't made any cards in probably about a year. I'm keeping most of my supplies tho b/c I might get back into it a bit when I retire (in a few yrs). I have a scrap room with lots of supplies as I used to sell for CTMH and SU, and worked for a few scrap stores in the area so accumulated a lot of product. No snow for us on the west coast of BC. Not even flurries. So weird this yr.

Michelle - good for you for wanting to purge. Good luck with a swap meet, hope lots of it sells.

Anne-Marie - sounds like you are organized and have a plan for scrapping. Good for you. I have many plans and not sure if any will get done :)

I'm getting off the computer for a bit and getting some desk work done. Hope you all have a great day.
 
Flight booked for England for the memorial service for my cousin, John. I have made good progress on the video. I think I will also create a few poster boards. Maybe ones that can be rolled for transportation. We can sort out how to display them on the other end. I also have to sort out how to run the video on that side. I can create a DVD in the correct format, I have it on my PLEX account and will have it on a USB stick and my iPad. I think I am not taking computer or camera this time - scary for me, but I think I can manage and think on the freedom! Well, maybe the camera, I am debating on that. But we only have a carry on, so I have to limit what I take.
 
I have been doing OK so far this year. Have made a couple of resolutions that are going well so far. The biggest thing that's happened is my non-binary child has asked us to call them by a different name, and to keep peace and harmony in our home, we've agreed to do so. I am mostly OK with this, but a tiny part of me is mourning the daughter they used to be. Sigh.

The next biggest thing that's happening is we are renovating our master bathroom. The first guy came by today to rip out some stuff and now it looks so weird in there! But it's progress. :)
 
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