Chicago

I spent most of last week in Chicago for a convention. The city, like most cities, is a study in contrasts - wealth and poverty, skyscrapers and parks, traffic and solitude, white, black and everyone in between. I love the energy of a large city, but really crave the peace of my small town that I call home.

The next to the last evening I was there, I took a walk in the park across from my hotel over to the edge of Lake Michigan. It was cool, but not the bracing cold I had expected, and there was a slight wind. The trees were bare and the grass had turned that dirty shade of greenish-brown. Just yards from one of the busiest streets in downtown Chicago there were birds and squirrels. The further I walked into the part, the more faint the traffic became. It was lovely. The photo above was the entrance to a bridge that spanned the rail system that connects parts of Chicago. I love the old lightposts and globes. I could almost imagine this spot a hundred years ago with children playing and adults strolling arm in arm.

Today I'm home again where I walk along much quieter streets, where I know my neighbors and they know me, where people do not rush along the sidewalks on their way to important meetings. I'm glad I had the chance to experience Chicago, but I am even more grateful to be home.

I'm on a Roll

Even tho I'm home with a cold, I still have enough energy to scrapbook. That's a good thing since I have a million photos and almost as many supplies. This layout was done from a sketch on Pencillines.
If you've never checked them out, you should - they post a new sketch every Sunday and have several designers create a page from it. The photos were taken on Eli's 4 month birthday in a lovely park in Portland. The patterned papers were from this month's Cocoa Daisy kit. Really like how it came out.
I have another layout almost finished using last month's Cocoa Daisy kit. I'm definitely on a roll!

Using the Cocoa Daisy kits

During the summer I did very little scrapbook-ing as I spent so much time in the garden. I'm suddenly overrun with supplies from my monthly kits. Yikes! So I've been on a scrapbooking binge. At the rate I'm using papers it could be next year sometime before I've caught up with them.

This layout has photos that Sara took of Eli on her 4 month birthday. She has quite the variety of expressions. At first, I thought I would put descriptive words in the pp blocks, but decided the photos are too cute to draw attention away from them. So, here you are you doll baby in all your happiness.

This One's for Eric

I realized when I was looking through my recent scrapbook layouts that I didn't have any with my son in them. Now, that is partially because I have so few recent photos of him. However, I do have quite a few of his years growing up. So, I have remedied it. This is of his family dinner celebration when he graduated from high school - only 23+ years ago. Hmmm....maybe I better do a few more.

Ali's class as BPS

I'm taking the 'Yesterday Today' class at Big Picture Scrapbooking for the next 12 weeks. The layout below is the first of the weekly layouts we will do in class. I love how it turned out. One of the best things I learned this week is how to scan older photos so I can enlarge and use them. The photo on the right is of me in Brooklyn, NY in front of my grandmother's brownstone apartment where we lived while my father was in Germany during WWII. I'm 2-1/2 years old - notice the high top brown shoes and the wooden doll buggy. Cool stuff.

Portland Marathon - Mayor's Walk

This past Sunday was the Portland Marathon. Sara had run it three years ago and I had walked it nine years ago. Neither of us wanted to do it again this year, but the 10K Mayor's Walk was just the goal we both could achieve this year. Even Eli had a number and was a participant. The first few steps wore her out so much that she slept most of the rest of the way. So here we are ready to take off.

The weather was perfect - cool and overcast until the last couple miles when the sun started to peek through the clouds.

We had just gotten started walking when the first three runners passed us. They looked like they were out for a Sunday jog when they past the 20 mile marker. It was fun to watch the runners go by us as we walked. Some were really struggling and others were running easily.

The cheers of the crowd that lined the route helped us pick up the pace. And we finished in under 2 hours - 1 hr and 50 minutes. That was a great time for me. I told Sara as we neared the finish line that I would like to still be doing this in 20 years. Guess that means I need to keep moving. :)

Bad Blogger

I'm a terrible blogger. It's been ages since I added anything new. So here's a layout I started a couple weeks ago and finished today. I used a Becky Higgins sketch and just cardstock and few pieces of a Pink Paislee patterned paper. The photos really don't need anything else.