The Arrival!

My blog book arrived! I love it! I keep sitting down to look at it and re-read all the posts and appreciate all my family photos illustrating each entry!

My senior year of college I took a personal history class. It was 1991 and my teacher was enlightening us on archival scrapbooking and how the current sticky paged books of the day would ruin pictures in thirty years or less. We also wrote a story about out life each week. That very semester I pulled up every picture from my 20-year history and re-scrapbooked them with archival-friendly techniques: Cream-colored acid-free paper with razor slits at the corners of each picture to hold them (instead of glue or tape etc.) I summarized events and documented photos with a archival-quality ball-point pen blue ink that wouldn't smudge if it got wet or run evil acid ink onto my precious photo memories. It was a labor of love. I even got my picture in The Church News sprawled on the floor pouring over my photos and pages with razor blade in hand making meticulous acid-free, photo-friendly slits.

A year later everyone was on the bandwagon and had stepped it up a notch with their colored patterned paper and store-bought acid-free stickers to celebrate every Mormon event (I know people of all denominations scrapbook. But I think if we took a percentage...) My scrapbooks in their oversized acid-free maroon 3-ring 4" binders became a thing of the past before they ever became a thing. I attempted to put my photo memories on colored paper with a patterned border and meaningful stickers, but I don't have the talent for that type of thing. I spent a whole scrapbooking party agonizing over the colors of one page. I own a whole "kit in a bag" with circle and oval patterns and razor kit and paper and stickers and markers and on and on.... but it sits on a not so prominent shelf in my laundry room harboring our pictures from Argentina that I tried to put in place 8 years ago. (I know this because Christopher was at the party with me in his infant seat.)

Now I have a new way -- not so much to scrapbook, but to preserve my memories--from my blog. And yes, you can choose colored backgrounds or patterned backgrounds or both. But I didn't.

Blog for the Shelf

My new blog book is done! Downloading BookSmart was easy and free. "Slurping" was effortless. Lot of layouts to choose from, including backgrounds and colors. I decided to go with plain white since choosing backgrounds was what I hated about scrapbooking!! I changed font size and that was a little time-consuming -- selecting text was more tedious than using Word. But it's done and was very fun to work on. I should get it in a week. If you want to make sure you have your blog forever, click here or go to www.blurb.com

Winter Storms

Sharing Time this Sunday. Preschool Silent Auction finalizing meeting on the 19th. Primary party on the 20th. Coordinate Elementary School Dr. Seuss' Birthday Celebration Morning for the 27th and set-up for Preschool Silent Auction that afternoon for Silent Auction that night. Find men to talk about special Priesthood experiences for Sunday. Write witty, rhyming "Dr. Seuss-style" poem to advertise Dr. Seuss Morning to send home by Tuesday. Find StoryTeller to read Dr. Seuss books -- or willing, animated parent or child. Primary Party posters and badges completed (thank goodness!). Create bid sheets for Silent Auction with detailed information for live auction items. Slice, Schmear and Serve 350 bagels to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday. (Nope, bagels and Dr. Seuss don't go together, but decidedly against serving green eggs and ham.) Trying to stave off panicky feeling and shallow breathing with cherry-flavored hearts candy and chocolate kissables in feel-good Valentine's colors.

I did go swimming today--yea for me.

25 Random Things About Me

Fun From Facebook:

1. I've lived in SLC, UT; Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL; Buenos Aires, Argentina; New York, NY; Summit, NJ; Los Angeles, CA and back in Utah again.
2. I have three half-brothers the same age as my youngest kids.
3. I'm the oldest of 6 kids -- one brother, four sisters.
4. My favorite Christmas present was a Red Line Pro Line dirt bike in 8th grade.
5. My Grandma lived with my family from when I was 2 until just before she passed away in 2000.
6. I broke my leg in 4th grade when I was run over by two kids on a bicycle.
7. I have two trophies that I'm still very proud of -- one for when my softball team took 1st place in 6th grade and the other for when I won the school spelling bee in Jr. High.
8. Used to walk all over town bare foot when I was a kid -- the mall, the grocery store, 7-11, Winchell's donuts.
9. Drove a green Opel station wagon when I turned 16. It was the car my grandma bought the year I was born.
10. Never had braces.
11. Did a double front flip on the trampoline when I was 10.
12. Proud owner of the arcade games Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga.
13. My grandma could take out her teeth and my gorgeous mom wears a wig, so she can take off her hair. If I lose a limb at any time I'll be able to keep up the tradition.
14. Swam with dolphins in Hawaii when they appeared in front of our hotel one morning.
15. I type 90 words per minute
16. Majored in advertising. Worked as a secretary at an ad agency (My boss was Kristin Lichtenauer who tagged me!) Then ended up teaching software classes at that agency. Then had my first baby and stayed home.
17. Competed in three triathlons. (Competed might be too strong of a word...participated might be more accurate!)
18. Love to Read and play Sudoku.
19. I have four children all born without pain medication. (Might be related to my essentially hippy childhood when I roamed without shoes all summer.)
20. I love to take naps.
21. A year ago in the airport I sat down and a strange lady completely invaded my personal space--getting super close, she whispered in my ear, "Your skirt is down to your knees." And sure enough, it was!
22. My daughter is having fun getting ready for 80's day wearing hot pink tights, lime green baggy t with belt and her hair in a side ponytail. I was more of a Levi Strauss, baby pink Izod and checkerboard Vans with a Dorothy Hamil do in the 80's. Although now that I think about it, in my 9th grade picture I am wearing a sweater vest and TIE with a perm (bangs permed as well).
23. I believe there is a correct way to load a dishwasher and it about kills me when it's not loaded correctly.
24. Favorite TV: The Office, 30 Rock, Without a Trace. Favorite DVD of TV shows that I missed: Arrested Development
And the 25th Random Fact About Me: I need a haircut.

Turn Your Blog Into a Book

Blurb (www.blurb.com) has their software working for blogger again, so if you haven't heard, you can turn your blog into a book by downloading a free program from Blurb. It's called "BookSmart" and is one of the simplest programs I've found for making photobooks. Rather than uploading your photos to a site, once you download BookSmart, it finds iPhoto and lets you drag and drop your pictures into your new photobook. Lots of layouts to choose from as well. The advantage over photo books from Mac is the price -- $30 for a hardcover book up to 40 pages, $36 up to 80, etc. Mac is $35 for 20 pages and $1 each additional page. (Softcover is even cheaper)

Even better is you can "slurp" your blog into a book. With this option, once you download the application, you simply choose to create a blog book and enter your blog name and password and BookSmart will upload your blog--pictures and all (you can select date ranges and entries etc.). You can change page formats and layouts to emphasize photos, text etc. and perfect your story.

I tried to do this at Christmas but because of ever changing code at various blog sites, Blurb was no longer compatible with Blogger. But now they're up and going so I didn't want to waste time! (I did order a photo book at Christmas and it turned out beautiful -- so I know they do good work.) Have fun!

Here's My Confession

So Betsy, here's my confession: I ate nothing but junk food today.