If a tree falls in the forest . . .

We lost a 30' pear tree in our front yard yesterday. A big storm come though on Friday and it split the tree near the base. The split portion fell on the house and irreparably weakened the rest of the tree. Yesterday, they took it down. The entire tree. I watched the entire process and recorded it with photos, of course. It took the professionals a mere two and a half hours to destroy what took nature 23 years to build. We now have a wall of branches and stumps on the curb waiting for Wednesday's big trash pick up day. I know it's probably silly to some of you but to me, it's just terribly, terribly sad.

All of our neighbors came out to talk, commiserate and visit with us while it was coming down. All except the bizarre neighbor to my left who thankfully, is moving out this weekend. As she came out, saw what was going on, and went about her business, completely ignoring all of us in the street watching and visiting, it only confirms my poor opinion of her. I hope she'll be happier and maybe more friendly in her new neighborhood. More, I hope the people moving in will be better neighbors to us.

The damage to our house is minimal and limited to the gutters and a few shingles on the roof. I should be thankful for that but I just can't seem to get there. I look at our home and I see naked. The one remaining tree will need to come down before too much longer because the tree that fell provided a lot of support for it. Now it looks terribly lonely as it leans over my soon-to-be new neighbor's driveway. I hope they weren't counting on it for shade. We will put in a new tree out front, a Live Oak, in the coming weeks but it can't possibly catch up to to it's predecessor while we live here.

I posted some photos of the process on Facebook if you want to see.

Do unto others

I was raised on that philosophy. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Now that I'm older with a grown child of my own, I try hard to live by it too.

Occasionally I am blessed with requests to create albums for other people. I am always flattered, a little nervous and of course excited. I work to create an album I would want someone else to create for me. If I'm not happy with something, I assume my customer won't be happy either. Since I'm an addicted scrapbooker, creating albums for hire feeds my need and gives me an excuse to sit and work.

I recently completed a wedding album for a returning customer. This is the first book I've used MTC in and I can honestly say, I believe this is some of my very best work. MTC let me create images on my own and made it SO easy. My customer was thrilled with the result and so was I. Bottom line, that's my goal. I know there will be many more jobs in my future but this will stand out as the one where my scrapping changed slightly. Thank you MTC!!

Shared with her permission, just a few pictures of some of the MTC creations in this album:

Oh the Shame!!

I have a deep love of scrapbooking. I really love saving all of our memories in beautiful albums that I create. I can proudly say that our son will have every photo I've kept in albums that are made from archival quality materials and they will last until his children's children are tired of seeing them. I love the embellishments, the papers, the rich colors. I use ribbons, fibers, stamps, inks, chipboard, grunge board and paper. But, I have a deep dark secret.

I hate to Journal. There, I said it. I confess. In this area of my books, there is a serious hole. I don't really mind my handwriting, most of the time. What I do mind are the mistakes. They didn't have a name for it when I was younger but I see bits of dyslexia in my writing. Letters transposed now and then. For years I've told others that this is just a part of who I am. That if my writing were perfect, my son would have no idea who created them. I strike out or cover the mistakes and move on. In truth, I really hate it. Since I type much better than I write, I'd like to computer journal but it goes against everything I have taught others about scrapping for years. Your handwriting, good or bad, is a piece of you that you place in your albums right along side the photos and the embellishments. I really believe this so I tend to avoid writing at all. NOT a solution I'm happy with. Until today!

My friend Dana now creates beautiful fonts from your own handwriting! And yes. I know. There are others who do this but, NONE until Dana that have taken my handwriting and worked with me until it actually is a very nice usable font that [insert gasp of surprise] IS my hand writing! Finally freedom! I can now journal on the computer, in my own handwriting and add it to my albums!! The result is so nice that even my school teacher mom would be proud of my penmanship. :o)

If you are like me and dislike writing in your albums, or just want a font from your handwriting for any reason, go see Dana! She will be thrilled to help you create a personalized font you can be proud of too. See Dana's blog SVG and MTC Files. Thanks Dana!