the reward is in the journey, not the destination

I love travelling.  Or rather, for clarity sake, I love destinations.  I dream of destinations.  I plan what to do, what to see, and read guide books, watch tv travel shows and research to my heart's content.  I Love Destinations!

This past Christmas, we met our friends in Las Vegas.  I agree that Las Vegas was an odd destination to take children to for Christmas but it was quite prettily decorated and an artificial skating rink was unexpected.

We chose Vegas as a springboard to travel to the Grand Canyon ~ the round-trip is about 9 hours.  When we discovered in late November that our van tour operator declared bankruptcy, we had enough time to arrange a bus tour to the South Rim. I understand that the Canyon has 3 different Rims and, although the South Rim is the most famous, it is also the Rim that apparently changes the least scenery-wise.  We went to the Canyon (S. Rim), we saw the Canyon, we took pictures of the Canyon (including one photo of the girls and me wearing our Blundstones for a Blundstone boot contest where the winner wins a trip to Australia ~ I'm crossing my fingers for that one!)

It was wonderful to spend time with family and friends in Vegas and it was, without a doubt, one of the most relaxing and fun Christmases I've had in a while.  Although the Canyon was lovely, this time I can honestly say that I learned so many things on that journey:  the girls do not like being away from home at Christmas; I learned more about how to plan travel for our family than I ever expected.  The bonuses of this trip?  My back cooperated for the entire trip!!  Yippee!  And another bonus?  I learned how to knit on the trip as I needed to learn as K has been begging to learn for about 1.5 years!  This time the reward was in the journey, not so much the destination.

still kickin'

I have been visiting in blogland, just not posting as you may well know.  Every so often, I get a nudge by a bloggin' pal to post.  Voila!  Here's a new post for you!

I'm happy to report that not much has changed since my last post in August 2011.  My health is the best it has been in years since I left the practice in late February 2011!  I'm been keeping myself busy ~ as I intend on relaying in some upcoming posts ~ but I will share a little of what I've been up to!

I've been very busy with paper crafts!  I participated in Prana Light's Valentine's Swap and was paired with  an ex-pat Canadian, Marie.  I had to hustle to get Marie's Valentine's package together and mailed in the hope that it would arrive in Britain by February 14!  And, as I had not planned on blogging at that time, of course I didn't take any photos!

I am in the process of completing Big Picture Class' "12 Days of Christmas" class which has trickled into Big Picture Class' "Twelve" class!  The "Twelve" class actually extends for a full year with the intention (altho I think it is almost hopeless for me!) to complete 12 layouts each month in 2012.  I'll get a lot of my scrapbooking backlog caught up this year!

Here are a few layouts I can share from Christmas 2011:

As we were travelling over Christmas in 2011, the girls hung their stockings with pins on the chairs which is something that I did as a child at Christmas.  They found it very funny to do so!  The back of the layout describes the challenges posed to Santa when a family is travelling over Christmas & how Santa got it all together.  Shhhh... they won't find out about the journalling for years!

This layout features snippets about Christmas decor.  My grandmother passed away in November 2011 at the age of 95 years and I have really noticed her influences since her passing and her influences became particularly apparent at Christmas.

I'll try to post again in a few days!  Have a good week!

a miracle at our house

Christmas is over.  The tree that almost wasn't is put away.  What????  The tree that almost wasn't?  The tree that I meticulously (yet crappily) photographed in my Picture the Holidays class?

In early December, we my dh set up the (artificial) Christmas tree.  He confirmed that the muted coloured lights were working before handing me the plug to our muted coloured lights so I started hanging the lights from the top of the tree.  After we got the lights up, my dh exclaimed that the lights were on backwards (so the plug wasn't at the right end of the tree).  We removed the lights and re-did them.  After a little spat because I didn't like how the lights were hung on the tree, I was delighted when he exclaimed that the lights were again on backwards and we needed to remove them. We re-did the muted coloured lights a third time only to discover at the end of the process that 2/3 of the tree wasn't lit with the muted coloured lights (although the tree was almost lit by the heated exchanges being used in the midst of the tree).  We couldn't figure out why the muted coloured lights weren't working.

Out came my mini-white lights that I have kept stashed ever since my dh and I came to an armistice by adopting the muted coloured lights instead of alternating between the white mini-lights (my choice) and my dh's god-awful bright coloured lights.  My dh objected to the mini-white lights but reluctantly agreed to them as a means of finishing the bloody tree.

The mini-white lights worked when they were tested and we mounted two strands on the tree.  Upon testing the lights, the 2nd strand did not work.  We were at the point of ripping the lights off the tree and having either a light-free tree or no tree at all when a miracle occurred and, for some unknown reason/intervention, the 2nd strand worked.  We all cheered.

PS: Happy new year!

painting folkart for Christmas

By special request by one of my readers, I have posted some of the (many) folk-art Christmas ornaments that I have painted over the years.  I started painting in or about 1996.  Painting is an act of self-discipline and repetition for me.  I started taking folk-art painting classes to exercise the right side of my brain (which is regularly overwhelmed by the rigourous workouts given to the left side of my brain being the analytical side) and as a way of getting me out of the office.  (I had discovered that my legal practice absorbed all of my "leisure time" so I needed an activity that required my attendance).  I discovered taking folk-art classes could be quite a social activity as all the class participants learned step-by-step within the class, all seated in a square.  Regretfully, there are no classes offered currently that I am aware of in my city so my painting is more in spurts to respond to seasonal demands!

Here's an early project completed in a class:

This ornament shows my progress from another class at a later date:

I painted this ornament (along with others donated for a Christmas tree) and kept this one for K's first Christmas ornament:

The remaining ornaments have been painted on my own, often based upon patterns found within folkart painting books:

do you see the angels?

 Today's prompt was to take a photo of a candle so I broke a 28 year old tradition by lighting this vintage candle on this vintage angel candle-holder that was given to me by a friend in high school!  I suppose I should have done this long ago; it is astonishing it hasn't melted or somehow became mis-shaped by now!

 We were supposed to take photos of lights yesterday.  As I didn't want to venture outside, I took this photo of K & N's tree!  Do you see angels in the tree too?  We purchased a short strand of lights for this tree this year so they will be on most evenings from September through to Easter due to K and N's various seasonal tree decorating spurts!  (It drives my dh crazy & now it is lit!!)

Earlier this week, we were urged to take a photo of something sacred.  I took a photo of my view of the local cathedral from my office window.

sincerely yours photo prompt

Today's photo prompt was to take a photo of cards/letters sent or received for the holiday season.  The teacher is accurate that handwritten letters/cards is almost a lost art in our age of almost instantaneous communication.  I do miss tangible communication methods although it takes so much longer and more effort to write and send a letter!

As I had just sent out the last of my Christmas cards yesterday (plus a letter to Santa ~ ho ho ho!), I took a photo of the cards received thusfar this holiday season!  We were encouraged to consider "antiquing" the photo.

 It so happened that I realized late last evening that I needed to create a tag or card for a co-worker who recently left my office.  Early this morning, I finished "ad libbing" the card so I took a photo of it as well!

2010 ornaments

Today's photography class prompt is to take a photo of a smile.  As I didn't capture any smiles early enough in the day, I decided to feature the 2010 hand-painted Christmas ornaments.  As I paint each of the girls a new ornament each every year, they chose the snowman 'Peace' ornament.  Little N painted the Noel ornament (and was smart to choose glitter glue to decorate her ornament instead of fiddling around with glue and glitter!)

Reframing: Frohe weihnachten

Today's photo prompt for my class was to re-frame a subject.  Technically, I didn't reframe an object (as the Advent calendar doesn't have a frame) but I was home ill with the flu so searching for a better subject was out of the question!

My dh and I bought this Advent calendar at a huge Christmas store in (Rottenberg?) Germany in 2002.  We've hung it annually ever since and now use it daily with the children as there is a little chocolate Santa waiting for them each morning following a discussion about Advent.

I don't speak German but Frohe Weihnachten is translated as "Merry Christmas".

gratitude: the gift of sound

As you may have noticed on my sidebar, I am taking a photography class this holiday season.  I know: just one more thing to do daily is contemplate what photo to take based upon email prompts!  I hope to capture a different perspective of Christmas this year.

Christmas is my favourite time of year.  It is a season of all our senses.  It is tactile with different ribbons, glitter and evergreens.  I love the smells and tastes of Christmas (baking, Christmas dinner).  I adore the brightness and warmth of Christmas.  Most of all, I love the sounds of Christmas, so seeped with music both classical and contemporary.

Yesterday's email prompt was "gratitude".  I have so much to be grateful for but I couldn't shake the need to focus responding to the daily prompt with a focus on hearing.  It was tough to photograph hearing or sound so I played around with music and CDs.  The reality is that one of my greatest joys at Christmas is playing Christmas music on the piano.  Voila!

I've continued to have ongoing periodic challenges of hearing this year, most recently in October and November.  I am continuing to explore the source of these hearing challenges with Western medicine; I am plugging along on the naturopathic diet albeit I don't feel any better or energetic for following it for almost 1.5 months).  The good news is that I'm not allergic to dust (following allergy tests) & I have no brain tumour (following MRI)!