Food Food Food ~ Sushi

Oh how I love sushi!!  I don't believe I've ever turned down an invitation to go to a sushi restaurant.  The best way to eat sushi is with a group so you can order a wide variety to share and enjoy.  

Every once in a while when I am desperate for sushi I will purchase grocery store sushi even though it just isn't the same.

Can you see just how "thrilled" Hal is to eat sushi.  He puts up with it once in a while because he knows it makes me happy.

I have no recipes for sushi since I don't think it looks like fun to make.  

Journal Prompt 16 Sep 2020 ~ Trapped

Today's Writing Prompt: Trapped

Write about a time you felt trapped.

When we were living on Moore Street there was a closet built in under the front hall stairs that we used for storage.  One day I was putting something away and bashed my head, knocking myself silly.  I landed on the floor and was really stunned for quite a while.  All I could think about was if the door closed no one would ever find me if I did lose consciousness.  It was really scary.  

After sitting quietly for a while I was able to get up and get out of there.

Fall 2020 Craft Room Organization Challenge ~ Challenge #3 Photos

It's Time for Challenge #3 

So, your paper is beautifully organized, your scraps carefully stashed or purged, and your desk is gleaming! You are starting to get organized. Doesn't it make you feel creative? Don't you want to get cropping? Well, you CAN'T scrapbook without PHOTOS!

Our third challenge is to organize our photos. Here is an excellent article to get you thinking about how to organize those precious photos before we start to S.P.A.C.E. them:

https://www.scrapbook.com/articles/organizing-and-storing-your-photos-and-negatives

Please take a moment and read this excerpt from Design Strategies for Scrapbookers:

Photo preservation begins with safe storage. Remove photos stored in the old magnetic albums immediately. A magnetic album has cardboard pages with adhesive on them and a plastic sheet to cover the photos. The adhesives and plastics in these albums are highly acidic and can ruin your photos very quickly.

To safely remove photos from magnetic albums you can use:

1. Dental floss – Slip a piece of dental floss under one corner of the photo and use a gentle back-and-forth sawing motion to lift the photo.

2. Blow Dryer – Set your blow dryer on low heat to soften the page’s glue and then carefully lift the photo.

3. Spatula/pan scraper – Use a thin spatula to slowly pry photos loose.

4. Undu Adhesive Remover – Undu neutralizes adhesive’s stickiness, making photos easy to remove. It dries clear and will not damage photos or smudge most inks.

5. I have heard about freezing the pages first but I’ve never tried it so use at your own risk.

Use an acid-free photo box with dividers or an archival quality photo album for storage. Organize photos chronologically or by theme, event or subject depending on how you scrapbook. Write notes on the dividers or on the back of the photo for later reference. Don’t use ballpoint pen to write on backs of photos. Buy a special photo-marking pen or pencil. 

Always save original photos if they are one of a kind and can’t be replaced. This is especially important with heritage photos. Instead, scan and print new copies, storing the original for safe-keeping. If you are determined to use the original, use photo corners to adhere these precious photos to your layouts so they can be safely removed.

I just had a reminder of this rule recently. I’ve been working on a family tree album and needed some baby pictures. I scrapbooked all my baby pictures when I first started scrapbooking many years ago. And that was the problem. I had cut them all in shapes and used decorative scissors on them. Not one was complete enough for me to scan and reprint. My mom and aunt are going through their old photos in hopes they have some originals. So I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to save original photos. Scan the originals and have them reprinted.

Don’t forget to properly store and organize negatives. Plastic negative sleeves will hold 4-7 negatives, depending on brand and the size of film. If you have older negatives in smaller sizes (such as 110) you can easily create subdivisions in the sleeves with a sewing machine and clear nylon thread. You can store negative sleeves in a 3-ring binder or folder. Label each sleeve with the date and/or subject.

Digital photos have their own set of rules. Always back up your computer files, including your digital photo files because computers crash and hard drives fail. Store a back up copy of your photos and important documents to an external hard drive. You can also download your digital photos to CD’s or USB drives although there is some debate as to how long they last. There are many online sites that you can save your photos to as well.

When you are looking for a safe place to store your memorabilia, photographs, negatives, supplies and albums, keep in mind that they will do best in a dry, cool place, out of direct sunlight. 

BUY

SORT: 

Gather together all of your photos, and sort them into categories that make sense:
TRASH (it's okay to throw out photos with bad colour, expression, composition. Why keep them? You're not going to scrapbook them)
TO SCRAPBOOK (the shots you know you are going to use)
TO STORE (photos that need to be kept, but aren't necessarily going to be going into your scrapbooks)
TO GIVE AWAY (doubles that you want to send to friends and family)

PURGE: 

Throw out the TRASH pile. Put the TO GIVE AWAY photos in envelopes and mail them to friends/family, or put them in your car so you can drop them off the next time you visit. Do not leave them in your studio, or they will creep back into your organized space.

ASSIGN: 

Sort the TO STORE and TO SCRAPBOOK groups of photos into a system that makes sense to you:
Chronologically
Holiday/Event/Vacation
Person

CONTAINERIZE: 

Now it's time to decide how you want to store your photos. Perhaps you want to put your TO STORE photos in acid free envelopes or albums. Perhaps you want to put your TO SCRAPBOOK photos into photo storage boxes, or accordion folders.

Make sure to label whatever storage containers you choose to use. Ideas for labelling include:
* buy premade labels that you can write on,
* create your own labels using a labeler or a cutting machine, or
* make labels with chalkboard vinyl so you can write on it with chalk and relabel later if necessary.
Whatever you decide, in the end all that matters is that you’ve got a label on it.

EQUALIZE: 

Next time you get new photos from the photo processor, spend a couple of minutes and put the photos where they belong: throw out the bad shots, give away the extras, put the keepers away in their album, and sort your photos for scrapbooking into their container.

We have started a Facebook group as a place for us to share photos, accomplishments, encouragement, tips and tricks as we work through the Fall 2020 Challenge. You are welcome to post before and after photos of your photo challenge there.

Journal Prompt 15 Sep 2020 ~ Autumn

It's time for the next installment of Tanka!  Tanka is a form of poetry similar to haiku. It's short, and the lines don't need to rhyme. The just must have a set number of syllables: 5/7/5/7/7.

Today's tanka prompt is: autumn / fall.

Autumn cool breezes 

pale blue skies colourful leaves 

warm sweaters white clouds

brilliant colours red gold orange

Autumn my favourite season

Journal Prompt 24 Sep 2020 ~ Closet

Go look if you need to....

What's something unusual that's in your closet right now?

Okay, I'm feeling rather boring right now.  I just looked in all of my closets and couldn't find anything that one might consider weird.  Sigh . . . 

What do you have in your closets?

Goofreads 2020 Update of Books You Need to Read to Be Considered Well-Read #64 ~ Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

For daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion, the author of Madame Bovary was tried for "offenses against morality and religion." What shocks us today about Flaubert's devastatingly realized tale of a young woman destroyed by the reckless pursuit of her romantic dreams is its pure artistry: the poise of its narrative structure, the opulence of its prose (marvelously captured in the English translation of Francis Steegmuller), and its creation of a world whose minor figures are as vital as its doomed heroine. In reading Madame Bovary, one experiences a work that remains genuinely revolutionary almost a century and a half after its creation. - Publisher

Madame Bovary, when it was first published in 1857, was considered very shocking. It is a gorgeously written story of Emma Bovary, an immature and romantic woman, who has grown up believing in a very romantic vision of how her life would be.  When her life turns out to be mundane she searches through spending and infidelity to find everything she had dreamed of as a child. Her quest for romance and passion ends up destroying the husband who has loved her no matter what and finally destroying herself. A great cautionary tale of the times with a valid truth for today.

I wasn't far into reading Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece when I realized that at some point in my foggy past I've read it before. It didn't stop me from reading it again.

I have to say the characters are annoying as hell . . . LOL . . . but the writing is like poetry, flowing and a pleasure to read. Flaubert has an amazing ability to give dimension to all his characters. There is a great deal of underlying humour and sarcasm as well.

Madame Bovary is a must read for anyone who loves the beauty of words.

Big List of Canadian Artists and Bands ~ Alannah Myles

 I know this one!!!  Yay!!!

Alannah Myles (née Byles; born December 25, 1958) is a Canadian singer/songwriter who has won both a Grammy and a Juno Award for her recording of the song “Black Velvet”. The song was a top-ten hit in Canada and a number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1990 according to Wikipedia.

Blogger doesn't seem to want me to embed a video so here is the link for Myles' Black Velvet:

https://youtu.be/tkXNEmtf9tk