Mortaine’s Blog

So, I decided on the “high school buddies” scrapbook theme. The instructor taught me how to lay out my photos onto layout boards so I’ll know which pages will have which photos on them, and then stack the boards so the photos don’t all fall out. I have 30 pages of photos, and that’s before I do the pictures from the Portland marathon (though pics of friends-in-Portland are in there). The book starts with a 2-page spread of jr. high school and girl scouting friends, and then moves into a facing-page of “the Pack” (Amanda, Scott, Sean, and Karen) from high school, and Andy on the facing page. I think there’s an iguana in there, but don’t quote me on that….

Our high school colors were blue and orange. I’m considering banning both colors from my scrapbook accent colors….. I absolutely have to mention the school colors in relation to Nichol’s Jr. High, though (red and white). On one page, there are four photos of my friends, and not one of them is wearing red.

Going through the photos was a little heartbreaking, because so many of them have been damaged by the albums they’ve been in for the last 15 years. Ouch. I have duplicates of a lot of pictures, which is good. And then I got to my “Andy” file folder, which is the folder containing tons of cards, postcards, letters, and envelopes that Andy sent me through college and later.

Envelopes. Andy decorates his envelopes sometimes. They’re a stitch. I have to use them in the scrapbook, because they are, really, indicative of some of his humor. For example, the envelope that basically dares the postal worker to open it and/or report me to the FBI because it contains secret takeover plans for world domination. In truth, I think it was a birthday card, but I’ll have to check the postmark for that.

I am a better photographer now than I was when I was 11, and thought “my ugly tennis shoes” was a good subject. I am a better photographer now than when I was 17 and didn’t know how to take a crowd shot without making it look like a mess. I am a better photographer now than I was when I was in my 20’s and took random pictures of people playing with silly string (though that might not have been my own shot). I am a better photographer now than I was in my mid-twenties when I tried unsuccessfully to photograph an unhealthy number of desserts.

Future scrapbook projects I want to try:
Travels with John. I wonder if I can get my travel journal back from Mom or John’s Dad– I mailed it to one of them and asked them to mail it on to the next, but can’t remember who has it now, if they still have it. The entries are in my LiveJournal– I posted them in January of 2003, and you can see them in the Memories in the Travel category. I will need to get the Paris duplicates back from Jenny for those, however.
Wedding. Hey, I now know more or less what I’m doing– I could do a wedding scrapbook! We have a wedding book that records all the dates and such, and a matching album, but the album has those peel-and-sticky album pages that have done such a good job of destroying my old pictures so far. Perhaps I’ll put the duplicates in there….
Friends’ Weddings. I take a lot of pictures at friends’ weddings for some reason.
Family. This one would be nice to do, though getting pictures might be difficult. I could do a whole album of Austin and Lizzy.
Genealogy. Though probably not the perfect format for the genealogy papers and photos, it might be nice to do a book or two to get all those things out of our suitcases and boxes and into something a little less…. hazardous.
Nature. I think I’d still like to get my nature pics into an album.
Pets. Man, if you guys knew how many photos of various people’s pets I own….

My favorite part of scrapbooking: The journalling. No big surprise there, right?

So, here’s my schedule from yesterday (remember, I have a 10 PM bedtime):
Leave work at ~4:30. Stop at old home to see if my pictures have arrived. They had. Yay.
Get to Weight Watchers at 5:30 to sign up and weigh in before the meeting.
WW Meeting from 6-6:30. Actually a good meeting. Glad I went.
6:30: new member orientation. This usually takes 10-15 minutes. It took 30. Gah.
7:00: Scrapbooking class.
9:00: Leave scrapbooking class half an hour early.
9:15: stop at grocery store to get dinner.
9:30: Sit down in front of TV with dinner.
9:30-10: Watch American Idol. He was ROBBED, man. Feed cats somewhere in there. Don’t remember when, really. Before Idol, I think.
10:00:ish. Go to bed. Crash.

I was supposed to eat before scrapbooking, but WW running over time made that a no-go. Next week, there’s no scrapbooking class, and WW won’t run till 7, so I’ll be home for a decent dinner. After that… I’ll have half an hour between WW and class for a couple of weeks, and I really need to eat before class. That much is obvious.

Sigh.

This morning, John and I had breakfast at home (7 points– go me!) and at 7:05 I got on the road.

I made it to work at 8:30. Almost an hour and a half in traffic. Fucking slow drivers on Hwy 9. Fucking car accident on 17. Fucking “scattered” showers from the Summit of 17 all the way to Milpitas. Fucking hell.

And I just wrote a long second half to this entry, but it deserves its own post.