What Grandpa's up to

Although this blog is about my life as a grandmother, I would not be a grandmother if I were not married to Abigail's biological maternal grandfather, Don Porter. He is the star of my life. And he is the driving force behind a new scrapbooking project I embarked upon today.

Don decided in January that it is not time for him to retire, so he has gone back to school to obtain a special education teaching credential. He is taking an introductory teaching course this semester, which has an interesting final project.

He will have to address 10 foundations of education, and present them in some sort of artistic fashion. Although this could have been a brochure, a poster or something presented electronically, the instructor showed a sample that from Don's description sounds like an art journal. Since I have just started making one for myself, I offered to make an art journal for Don as well. But we've decided instead that we will make a scrapbook.

So, today I planned backgrounds and pulled scrapbook papers for these pages. I will need to print photos and stamp or otherwise embellish some things as well. The journaling, however, will be left up to Don. I believe he will be able to get each of his 10 topics onto one page in the 8x8 scrapbook album he has chosen, but if we are mistaken, I will also need to make pockets for his journaling.

It's late, so I will begin nailing down the details of my part tomorrow.

I also worked on one more page of my art journal this morning. I used my one bottle of spray ink to create the background for this page. While spray ink is one of the newest and hottest ways to embellish paper art, I have only been able to justify purchasing one color, and that was while I was working. So there is an area of the page that I am going to have to color some other way. I'll either water color or attempt to spray my watered down baby blue paint on this.

After I finished the spray job and left it to dry, I went with Don to school. I normally do this, and then hang out in that neighborhood of Riverside until he's done with class. I spent today at Barnes and Noble reading the latest issue of Scrapbooks Etc. (and found one more idea for a new scrapbook page to do on a growing list of random scrapbook pages I might want to do.)

But when Don was done with school, he wanted to eat lunch, go to Michael's to look at art journals, scrapbooks and scrapbook supplies (although I advised him we should try to use the many papers we have at home, at least until we figured out an idea). He then got his haircut while I hung out at Canyon Crest Shopping Center. I found a cool shop where you buy and paint ceramics, which they then glaze for you. So in a week, I will be the proud owner of a coffee mug I painted myself. It's a $23 coffee mug, so I won't be creating matched sets anytime soon, but it was a fun way to while away the time.

Just as Don got out of the car to go to our hair stylist, he noticed we had run over a screw that was imbedded in our tire. Since that probably had created a slow leak, we took it over to Kurt's Auto as soon as he was done. They plugged it for free!

Don also wanted to go to the commissary, since we were in that neighborhood. We didn't get home until about 6 p.m., so and after dinner we spent until now planning his new book. So that left me no time to work on my own projects, or even house cleaning, as it is now time for bed. So good night, and happy creating.

Day 2 of the Creativity Queue Challenge

My most recent creations in the Art Journal

I just wanted to update on my art journal project, since this is Day 2 of the Creativity Queue Challenge at Daisy Yellow.

Monday, I posted the first of these two when it was in process. I had created the yellow background with paint, watercolors and ink. I still have a lot to learn about all those mediums, but I'm looking forward to doing so in this process.

I do like how this one turned out. The new background is Christmas wrapping paper, depicting a "Holy Land" scene with the three wise men. But when I put a rectangle of white paper on top of it, only a palm tree remained. And palm trees are one of the many things that make me think of my own homeland, southern California. I have lived in California since just before I was 2, but only about half of that time in southern California. So when I think of the state as a whole, I also think of the Gold Country. Thinking about yellow and the state of California makes me think of a number of things, so I listed them here, then ran the yellow watercolor pencil and brush over the journaling.

Today, I created another art journal entry, and this one uses a medium I am a little more familiar with. Although I can't say I have ever made a frame like the ones on this second art journal page on a scrapbook page, this was a good use of some really old scraps. I mean, I've had those yellow and green scraps since I lived in Apple Valley. So that's somewhere between 8 1/2 and 10 1/2 years. I have had the red scraps quite awhile too, and the blue and purple ones for a few years. Since I never throw my scraps away until they are tiny, this was a good way to use some up.

I have been scrapbooking the past two days as well. I haven't finished my most recent creation yet, just everything except the journaling. I may post it soon. It's going into Abigail's second year album, as it is about how she and her parents celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Instead, here is a recent layout of her (but not a recent photo) that I'm keeping for myself.

I still enjoy scrapping Abigail's baby photos, but I need to do more of her as a 1-year-old

That album is slow in coming. I am not sure why. When she was born in 2010, I was excited about becoming a grandmother, and wanted to do lots of pages about her. But I knew I couldn't scrap every photo of her when Holly sent us about 400 of them in Abigail's first month, maybe 1,000 in her first six months. Still, the Two Peas board inspired me to do some pages, and some of those important milestones in her first year inspired me to do some more. I sent Holly a good-sized book for Abigail's first birthday. But now she's 18 months old, and I have done all of seven pages for the new album. Her 1st birthday, Halloween, Christmas, that very important announcement about a future new sibling we received in January, and now St. Patrick's Day.

I don't even know that I would have started, except that her first birthday photos matched Challenge 2 over at Color Stories International. That prompted me to do the first page. Challenge 10 also prompted me to scrap a photo of her - a baby photo that I will keep for myself.

Getting caught up on our own 2012 photos prompted me to do a few more pages for Abigail, including St. Patrick's Day. But I hope something comes along soon to challenge me to do a few of the more every day photos. I suspect in the past year Holly has only posted a few hundred photos on her blog, as opposed to sending us 1,000 in the first six months through Kodak Share. But 1,000, 500 or 100, I still can't scrap them all. But I will keep you posted on what I do scrap.

Journaling with art

This page sums up what my art journal, and most of the five pages I have completed so far are all about.

To Don's delight, my first project in my new venture focuses on our favorite songs.

I am not sure how today's art journal project will end up.

As many of you know, I am a writer by profession, and probably always will be to some degree. As most of you probably also know, I have been a scrapbooker for about a decade. I now have more than a decade worth of scrapbook pages, following a decision I made in 2001 that my photos deserved better treatment than to simply be stuck in a photo album.

In 2001, I believed a prevailing thought that "something better" for photos was 12 x 12 scrapbooks, and the cardstock a few companies were making to use with them. Patterned paper could also be added, although in 2001, most of it was sold at an 8.5 x 11 size. Stickers could - and should - also be added, in the very same theme of your photos.

In 2001 the paper arts world was getting away from this simple treatment, I soon learned. Brads, eyelets, stamped images and so much more became popular on pages. But having "grown up" back in the days when a newspaper page was a paper craft unto itself (that is, before the newspapers I worked for invested in the computer technology to do it digitally), I resisted doing more than photos, journaling and adding some color and other interest with paper and stickers.

Eventually a class at my then-local, then in business scrapbook store (RIP Scrapbook Story of Victorville), got me over that hurdle. The website Two Peas in a Bucket. com was also a guiding force in my development as a scrapbooker. Through it, I have always known what the latest scrapbooking and other artistic trends are. (For instance hexagons are in this year! That would explain why Sandals Church keeps using them on the bulletins and videos for the MOVE series!) I have also found the inspiration to use these new ideas on my scrapbooking and cardmaking projects. Don's Valentine had hexagons on it.

Two Peas, for so many years, had challenges that kept me motivated to do new scrapbooking projects on almost a daily basis. Of course, with a full-time job, I really couldn't quite do a scrapbook page a day, but I tried. And since 2009 when I got my digital camera, I usually had a whole bunch of photos that NEEDED to be scrapbooked. Not always, but when I didn't there was always a Two Peas challenge or two to motivate me. And if not on Two Peas, I could usually find one somewhere else.

Lately that has not been the case. Challenges I had been doing for years on Two Peas have either disappeared or been scaled way back, as their hosts have been off to new ventures. And for whatever reason, the projects "somewhere else" don't always captivate me.

Of course, lately, it has been easy for me to work on something creative almost every day. I am essentially unemployed, except that I have been blessed to find one freelance writing project, so I can still call myself a professional writer. I'm also very hamstrung in my efforts to find a new job. I'm now over 50 (49 most of the time of this job search), Don and I only have one car, and if I take the car to go to networking events, Don will use that as an excuse to stay at home. The primary networking group I want to attend is at the same time Don needs to be at school.

It seems, after a few months of therapy to deal with all this, letting go of my dreams and accepting the life I have for what is good about it is the best approach. My therapy also recommends that I process the negative feelings I have about it by journaling. Which I do. At least five minutes a day. I also journal, in a sense, on these two blogs I maintain.

But although Two Peas as a whole seems to be in a bit of an artistic rut, I have to credit a recent post about art journals for pulling my creativity in a new direction. Art journals are not a new thing. I think they have been around for a long time, like scrapbooking had been when it became such a popular hobby in the 1990s. Art journaling has also been a popular hobby for at least a few years now, but I always looked at it as something for ARTISTS, not JOURNALISTS. Even one previous attempt at art journaling left me shaking my head, as those entries were not artistic.

But the recent Two Peas post led me to discover a new website, all about art journaling. The website is called Daisy Yellow. Looking around there last week, I discovered approximately 90 ideas for making very creative pages. I wanted to do this ! Helping matters a great deal, the first two ideas were to make an art journal page with circles, and to make an art journal page about your favorite music album. I opted instead to make a page, with circles. I mean, we are so into music circles here, I first wrote "your favorite record album" before remembering I am quite possibly the only art journal artist who would automatically think of records when thinking of music albums. I opted to do my first art journal page about our song rating project.

Since then, I have done 4 more pages, and a sixth is in progress. Daisy Yellow is a blog, and today is beginning a project called The Creativity Queue Challenge. The challenge is that on the eight days it is running, we will post about any creative things we have done. And that's why I'm posting about my art journal here today.

I'm working with one of her Kick Start Your Art Journal prompts, as I most likely will be for awhile. This prompt encourages us to start by painting a yellow background with various yellow paints. Instead, I have used my one yellow paint, my one yellow water pencil and my one tin of yellow stamping ink to create a new background. The challenge says to add gift wrap and then journal on white cardstock about what yellow means to me, which I probably will do later today. Also, having read another participants' blog entry about making her own stamps, I am inspired to add images created by one of the hundred or so stamps I already own to this project. After I finish it, I may then start on a second art journal page, or I may save that for another day.

First, as soon as this blog entry is finished, I am going to go for a run.

Oh, I did one more creative, artsy thing today too and it's kind of related. Thinking about yellow last weekend, when I first typed the list of the Kick Start Your Art Journal prompts, I noticed my neighbors have yellow roses blooming in front of their lemon tree. What a contrast of yellow plants! I decided then it would make a good photograph, and today I photographed them. I only took a few shots and will not develop them until the roll is done (I'm thinking after Easter?), but I'll be glad to share my photo with you then. Until then, enjoy my new art projects.

A trip to San Diego (Coronado)

San Diego, as seen from Coronado

A birthday party for me and for Aaron

Followed by a Jimmy Buffet concert

I wanted to share a few photos because I really should have blogged about what we did the second weekend in March. We had a fun trip to Coronado to see the Hughart and LePore family. Also making the (eight-hour in their case) trip were the Van Curens, aka my parents and brother.

The purpose of this trip can pretty much be summed up in the three photos posted above. It was the Van Curens first time to see Coronado (or San Diego) since my aunt and uncle moved there in October. Aaron has visited San Diego a few times in recent years to see his friends Rob and Mary (who accompanied us to some of the weekend's activities), but I am not sure about my Mom and Dad. None of the three of them had been to Coronado at all, as far as I know. We had visited San Diego as a family in 1981 or 1982, and as far as I know, that's the last time my parents had been there.

Don and I have visited more often, including trips to Coronado in November to see the Hugharts, and in March 2011 when the Lepores first moved there to see them. When we went in March of last year, we had made enough previous trips to San Diego, we were able to tell them where many things of interest were. San Diego itself can be reached easily from our house in less than 2 hours, Coronado in less than 2.5.

But back to this trip. We had to go from San Bernardino, where I interviewed for a job that is temporary, but will hopefully last until after the November election. It's with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters. I am still waiting to find out at this point, March 21. Don't expect to know until next week. It took us three hours. When we got there, my parents still were 1 or 1.5 hours away.

Once my parents arrived, my Mom and Aaron met us, and Aaron's friends Mary and Rob, at a restaurant in Coronado called Peohe's. This was my second "special birthday dinner." Don and I had already done another special birthday dinner in Palm Springs on March 3, but Don had of course thrown in his obligatory concern that this was too expensive. My parents show no fear in this regard. My mom was the one showing no fear this time, because my Dad was getting over a bad cold, and was too sick to join us for many activities.

Because Aaron also had recently had a birthday, this was his special birthday dinner too. In fact, the restaurant staff kind of messed things up, at the end. After doing 100 things right.

We had ordered one desert for all eight of us to share. For some reason, the restaurant decided to give HIM the desert with a candle on it instead of me. Most of our table objected, since it was not Aaron's 50th, so the desert was moved to me for blowing out the candle and taking the first bite. It was delicious. We probably should have ordered two. I may be the only one who thinks that though.

We had another special birthday dinner the next day. This one was made by Ron, Annie and Jodi and served to us (the same people as Friday, plus my Dad, Jodi and her sons) in the clubhouse of the apartments where the Hugharts and Lepores live. It included steak, grilled vegetables, appetizers and cakes for both Aaron and me.

And after the dinner, Don and I, my Mom and Aaron and Annie and Ron went to a Jimmy Buffet concert. This was Aaron's sheer joy. I thought it was pretty cool too.

I have scrapbooked all the pictures now. I am going to share one of those pages with you, since I opted to post it on Two Peas.

Steak and Cake, the "birthday party" in photos and remembered in my favorite color, purple

Thinking of Grandma

I am playing around over at Color Stories Inspiration again today. This website challenges my scrapbooking to levels hard to reach when you are scrapping on a budget like me, but I have always been a fan of its creator, Debbi Tehrani, for challenging me to do new things. Another challenge, which for probably seven or eight years she has been posting at Two Peas in A Bucket has taken so many of my scrapbook pages from hohum to something special. I just finished one like that, and I think I will share more about the topic of that one in a future blog post.

Color Stories Inspiration is going to be less likely to help me finish up a page for my regular album. (Although it too did once.) That's because Color Stories Inspiration is much more about one photo layouts than the usual multiple photos I use in mine. You have to leave room for some fancy work, in the case of mine the vintage cabbage rose paper, the butterfly and the torn edges. My pages are simple compared to most of what you see at Color Stories Inspiration. Also, a key part of this challenge is the journaling, on one of several topics recommended by Debbi. This week, she goes to one of her favorite topics - childhood memories.

This line of Graphic 45 (the cabbage rose paper) is one I initially purchased to scrap Grandma's 90th birthday. So it, and butterflies make me think of her. Also, with Easter coming around again, I knew that on my cousins' Facebook pages, I would see a photo of Grandma from two Easters ago holding great-grandsons Wesley or Wyatt. Sure enough, on Wendy's Facebook, I found this great photo of her and Wyatt, and an added bonus, she is wearing my Mom's red jacket. (Grandma was always cold the last few years of her life.) I needed more red on this page. If you are a scrapbooker, you understand. If not, just trust me.

Part of the journaling on the page focuses on how Wyatt is a special great-grandson. He is the youngest of her relatives that she ever met. Wyatt now has a younger cousin (and Wes a younger brother), but unfortunately, she was too sick to meet Bradley. My hope is that while Wyatt, Wes and Bradley are too young to remember, the rest of her great-grandchildren who have met her will remember the kindness and class she exhibited throughout her life.

If you want to know all about that, scroll all the way down to my first entry. Or just know that this woman loved people. I know all of her children and all of grandchildren know that. That's Uncle Don, Mom and Annie, and me, my cousin Debbie, Aaron and my "little" cousins Chad, Jodi and Wendy. This also includes Matt and Mandy, two grandchildren she acquired in 1981 when my Uncle Don married my Aunt Sandy. I am pretty sure Debbi's children, Chris and Katelyn, also know how much their great-grandma loved them.

My Grandma has several more stepchildren in her family besides Matt and Mandy. The rest are through my brother and me, as we both became stepparents instead of natural parents. It is my sincere hope that John, Pamela and T.J. experienced that love from her. They spent a good deal of time with her when Aaron was their stepfather, and I believe their lives were enriched from it.

Unfortunately, my stepchildren will be in the same situation as my little cousins' little children. Not because my stepchildren are little, of course. But it is because Josh only met my Grandmother one time, and Holly never did. It is my hope that Josh remembers enough from that one meeting to know I had a fantastic grandmother. It is sad that Holly will never know. Except that the premise of my blog has always been that I want to love my own granddaughter (Holly's daughter Abigail) the same way I was loved by my Grandma. That's a tall order, but I will do my best, always!

Thoughts a day after I turned 50

Yesterday I reached the milestone most of the world's grandmothers have reached - many of them before they become grandmothers. I am now a half-century old.

I had high hopes for a big celebration, but Don and I did the best we could. We incorporated some of the things we had been hoping to do for almost a year in the process.

My dream was to have a birthday party in Palm Springs, which would have included the show put on by Sandy Hackett's Rat Pack and the dinner at Davey's Hideaway. We did in fact go to Palm Springs to do those two things. But by ourselves, and for only about six hours.

My parents have elected to come here next weekend to celebrate my brother's 47th birthday (which is Wednesday) in San Diego with me, Don and the Hughart/Lepore family. We will be doing a nice dinner Friday night somewhere in San Diego or Coronado, and attending a Jimmy Buffett concert at San Diego State University on Saturday night. They spent the days just before my birthday attending a water tour from the Bay Area to Reno, and unfortunately, coming down with bad colds.

And there wasn't anyone else, even here in Riverside, who wanted to go out to Palm Springs. We really don't have close friends here in Riverside. I wish I had been able to let my friends in the Victor Valley know of my plans, because I think with sufficient advanced notice I could have more strongly encouraged their participation. But I couldn't get Don to commit to any of this until the middle of February. We made a reservation at Davey's in the middle of the last week in February, but even on Saturday morning we had to have a frustrating conversation about how much I was looking forward to an enjoyable meal at a restaurant that would be a step up from Old Spaghetti Factory.

The show and dinner were the only presents given me so far by human beings. God gave me a nice present though. My pastor had an alter call on my birthday, and I believe there were close to 200 people who responded. This includes one person I once considered a friend, but who clearly turned out not to be one. That person and I normally do not attend the same service, but he and his wife did attend the 5 p.m. service on my birthday. He is rededicating his life to the Lord, and I pray that those who are still his friends will give him the support to grow into the person God wants him to be, as well as the other 199 or so who made decisions.

And for me, I pray that I will act in a way that reflects a half-century of maturity, and 29 years of a personal relationship with the Lord.

As for the cupcakes, they were my gift to 47 other people. I took 48 of them to the weekly barbecue Sandals holds before the 5 p.m. service. The first 48 cupcake lovers in line (one of which was me) got to sample my cupcakes. These are the second bunch of cupcakes I have ever taken to Sandals. The first bunch won the "best cake" award at a cupcake contest we had in November.

I'm a Grandma and a grandaunt

I wanted to let you know of a recent addition to my extended family. Since I have been a little negligent with this blog, the newest of my mother-in-law's great-grandchildren has actually been here for about a week. So, without further ado, may I introduce to you:

Sherman Kent Hess Jr.

Lil' Sherman, born Feb. 23 at 8:15 p.m. weighing 8 lbs. 15 oz. He is, of course, our nephew Sherman and his wife Ana's little boy.

For my mother-in-law, that makes (the way I am counting them), 10 great-granchildren. I am not counting the grandchildren of her stepsons, Glen and Dale. If I knew the names of Glen's children, I would. Dale does have one grandson, named Joshua Porter. Dale has two sons, Dale Jr. and Andrew.

I mention that because of the coincidences. If you know me, you probably know that the Joshua Porter we usually talk about in our conversations is not Dale's grandson (even though the boy lives in our community.) It is our own son, Josh.

And the Andrew Porter we speak of is usually not Dale's younger son, but the boy on the right in this photo:

Jed and Andrew Porter

These two boys are two of Brian's five grandchildren, both sons of Paul. Andrew is the oldest at age 7, and Jed is right behind him at 6.

Aidan Porter and Kaia Coleman

These are two more of Brian's grandchildren, Danielle Coleman's children. Aidan Porter is 6, falling in between his cousins Andrew and Jed. Kaia, who just turned a year old in January, is the next-youngest after Sherman.

I don't actually have a picture of the next addition to our family. Her name is Briana, and she is David's granddaugher, Neesa's daughter. She is about 4 or 5 years old, the oldest great-granddaughter. 

Kiera

The next-oldest great- granddaughter is Kiera, who is Ana's 4-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. She's a very big part of Sherman's life, and Nancy loves having a granddaughter along with two grandsons.

You can see Nancy and Kent's older grandson, Kristan's son Eddie, in the corner of the photo of Kiera. Here is a better photo of Eddie.

Eddie

About a month after I posted most of this entry, I learned my nephew Paul actually has three children. His daughter Jade was born in 2010, and shares a mother with Jed.  For reasons I don't know, while Jed has lived with Paul for more than three years, and with Andrew's mother for most of that time, Jade remained with her mother until April 2012. I do have a picture of Jade, but until a custody battle is resolved and/or until I take my own photo of her, I'm going to hold off posting it.

These nine little kids are my grandnephews and grandnieces.

The other great-grandkid is someone very special to me:

Abigail Cronin

Although Abigail is just 1 year old, she falls near the middle of the pack. Andrew, Aiden, Jed, Briana and Kiera and Jade are older than her. Eddie is just 12 days younger than her, and Kaia is also 1.

Sherman Jr. isn't going to be on the bottom for long though:

Abigail is a big sister, to a little one who will be arriving in September.