Little things go a long way...

In spite of a few lows this week, I have to say that I have found happiness and inspiration in two of the smallest things, and I wanted to share those with you.



First, I had the honor of hearing Bill Cosby speak in person this week. He is every bit as fabulous as you think he's going to be. Funny, humble, smart, just AMAZING. One of the bits that I took with me was this: "Make yourself into a cocoon. Develop yourself. And when you emerge you have two choices. You can be the ugly moth that flies around with no direction and ultimately smears itself on a windshield. Or you can be a butterfly. Be the butterfly that flies around God's Garden doing beautiful things." Loved that. Be the butterfly.

Second, along the gardening theme, I went to Home Depot on Thursday night to get mulch and a few more bedding plants to fill in the blank spots. I found some gorgeous gerberas and also some petunias and some white flowers that are tall. I pushed the cart out to my car and was loading the plants all into the trunk. While I was doing this, a guy that worked there was collecting all the carts. He saw that I was about done with mine, and instead of just standing there waiting, he loaded up the mulch for me. How sweet was that? I mean, it's something I'm perfectly capable of, and its not something that his boss or another co-worker saw or that he was probably even told to do, so he did it just out of the goodness out of his heart. Very cool. He was being that butterfly.

Toodaloo!

Photography...

A few weekends ago, Greg was out of town for a bachelor party for a friend, so I took our new toy (a digital Canon Rebel) out to play. I drove up to Como Park for the day and shot around 500 photographs of plants and animals. It was a great day...learned some new tricks on the camera! You can see some more in my gallery at:

Zoo pics gallery

Let me know what you think....constructive criticism always welcome.

Sunday Brunch

A layout I did with pictures from brunch a few weekends ago. The papers are by Bo-Bunny Press, the flower are Prima, the letter stickers are American Crafts, and the swirls were cut with the QK Flourish Revolution die. I got the rhinestones in the bead/sequin aisle at Michael's or JoAnn's. The scanning job is bad, but the border does go all the way around the layout evenly in real like (like the border in the lower left corner) and the flower/flourish combo in the upper right also isn't chopped off in real life.

And another new layout...

I had the pleasure of meeting some of ladies from Stemma (the company that designed this paper) at the beginning of May. They were really great ladies. I was so excited by their new line (you can find it here: http://www.artsytartsy.com/). A simple layout of one of my new favorite photos of my mom and I two weekends ago. Patterned paper by Stemma, rub-ons by Doodlebug.

A new layout...

A layout I did tonight from St. Patrick's Day this year. Based on a sketch at Page Maps: http://www.pagemaps.com/apr07maps.htm. Papers are by Reminisce, and while it doesn't show up well in this scan, they are faintly glittery. I cut a few of the circles out and then popped them up with pop dots. Flower by Prima, brad by Queen and Co.

Looking for a good read?

I just finished this book and LOVED it. Would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. It was a page turner for me...over six-hundred pages and I finished it in about a week-and-a-half. That's how good it is!

I have to admit that I can't think of a time that I read a piece of historical fiction that wasn't part of an assignment in school. So this book would've flown under my radar if my mom hadn't had it laying out the last time I was home.

The author, Phillippa Gregory, does a fantastic job of weaving real historical facts with rumours, speculation and just plain fiction. She brings her characters to life so well, and chose a fantastic point of view when she chose Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn (King Henry the VIII's second wife). It starts out with Mary as a young courtier in Queen Katherine's court and as a pawn in her family's game to become the most favored family in England. From there we see Mary struggle with right and wrong, loyalty to her family, her King, and her own desires. As the book continues we watch her mature and start to catch on the ploys of those around her. She transforms from gullible and frusteratingly obedient to strong and admirable.

This book exposes the life in the King's court, and shows that while we outwardly see richness and propriety and beauty, we aren't seeing the whole story. It goes back to that old adage of "if it's too good to be true, it probably is."

I can't tell you how many times I put down the book to run to the computer and Google information about the Boleyns, King Henry and the Tudor court. It was amazing to me to see how well Phillippa tied together bits of fact with intriguing fiction. I will be picking up the follow up (The Boleyn Inheritance) soon. Happy reading, friends!

More Inspiration...this time it's stuff I made...

Thought I'd share some of the projects I've been working on lately. I've been trying to stay on top of the 2007 photos and catch up on the 2006 photos. The top layout is of my nephew, who will be one later this month, taken after he was born. I still just marvel at that sweet tiny face in all its' perfectness. The second layout is about my grandma and I celebrating our birthdays together this year. My great grandma's birthdate was one week before my grandma's and mine is one week after. Pretty cool, huh? As usual, my family made it special with favorite foods and great gifts, but the best gift of all was having grandma there to celebrate after a tough year of chemo and hip problems. The bottom layout is just a collection of family pictures, all taken in January. Clockwise from the upper left: my uncle Ric, my aunt Trudy, my grandma, my mom, Greg, me, my cousin Emily and my cousin Melissa. Enjoy!

Michelle