Tag Archives: Celebration of Life

Shutterfly Booked – Arrived

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There was a bright orange box sitting by my front door today. It was from Shutterfly. It is always fun to have a book arrive and get to see the hard copy of what I created on the computer. I’m happy with the results. Since it is 8″ x 8″ inches it is bigger than Blurb‘s 7″ x 7″ book that is a favorite of mine. Another difference is the cover is glosses while the Blurb cover has a matte finish. I tend to lean to the matte but there isn’t anything wrong with the glossy. Overall the Shutterfly book seems to be of a good quality. So if having complete control of you design isn’t something you care about Shutterfly seems to be a good choice. But I’ll be sticking with Blurb and their PDF to book workflow because I didn’t like not having the control that I’m use to having when doing a Shutterfly book. I will keep them in mind for other projects though.

My Joy Jar

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I had so much fun doing something every week last year for my 50th birthday that I decided I wanted to something this year but of a different sort. I think the seed got planted when I was doing research for Gift Idea #49 – Memory Jar. One of the ideas was to put slips of paper in a jar as things you want to remember happen each day. The next piece came when I was listening to a talk by Dieter Uchtdorf called “Of Regrets and Resolutions”  One of the things he suggests we decide our own happiness. And I believe he is right. I think these two ideas combined somewhere in my brain and the “Joy Jar” was born.

I took an old canning jar that I really like and added some ribbon and tags in the happy color, yellow. I also collected a bunch of yellow tags and pieces of card stock to write my joyful moments on. My plan is to post a list of my Joy Jar moments each week (hopefully on Saturdays) for the rest of the year. So here goes my first list:

  • bright sunshine
  • Yakira is in phase 6
  • seeing Zodaic and Kai romping through the snow in the backyard
  • Bill and Zodiac playing
  • taste of good ice cream
  • how good heat feels after being outside on a cold day
  • eating pomelo
  • Zodiac’s cute little face
  • 99 countries visited my blog in 2012
  • a brand new year (2013)
  • eating Lindor chocolates
  • visual image of Lotus (a puppy in training) wearing ankle socks in pink and yellow because his raiser thinks his feet are cold
  • Zodiac’s joy
  • aurora borealis
  • thinking of our trip to Alaska
  • homemade pizza
  • being back inside our warm house
  • cuddling with our cat, Gandy
  • Tillamook yogurt for $.59 each
  • seeing Zodiac and Gandy looking out the window together, Gandy in his tower and Zodiac with his front feet on the bottom part of the tower and his body underneath.

I had fun doing this. I’m looking forward to the coming weeks. What has brought you joy this past week?

 

 

 

Shutterfly Book

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my 50 for 50 book cover

I received a free 8×8 hardcover book coupon for Shutterfly recently and decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try it out. I’ve never even been the Shutterfly site before so things were a bit rough to start. After a few false starts I figured out how to get a book started and upload photos for the book. Even though I choose their customized book path I found myself wanting more control over what I could do. But then I’m used to have complete control over my projects in Adobe InDesign. I spent 4 or 5 hours putting together a 20 page book. Having done it once it would probably take about half that time the second time around.

I was able to export it to a pdf but as you can see from above (and below) it has a watermark on each page. The link below will take you to Shutterfly’s preview of the book.

I can see how Shutterfly would be a good option for many people. They have lots of ways to share your photos and they are geared to really put together projects without too much thought on the customer’s part. I can’t see me ever using them as my primary source for books though. I’m too picky about wanting things the way I want them. I’m looking forward to getting the book and see what it looks like. I’ll post again after in comes.

Click here to view this photo book larger

 

50 for 50 #50 – Time Capsule

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inside my time capsule

The year has gone by so quickly. It has been lots of fun doing something almost every week to celebrate turning 50 years old. I think I will miss it. But I’m excited to been done – that I’ve accomplished the goal I set out to do a year ago. For my last thing I gathered together a bunch of small items I had kicking around and photos and images clipped from magazines over the last couple of years. I thought about getting a something fancy to put my time capsule in but a decided in the end on an empty peanut container. There is nothing archival about it but there isn’t anything of historical value in my time capsule either. My plan is to open it in 10 years. I guessing it will be very interesting to see this odd collection of items when I’m 60 years old.

my time capsule

outside of my time capsule

50 for 50 # 49 – Clam Chowder

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My Clam Chowder

My Clam Chowder

I can’t believe the year is almost over and I’m down to my second to the last 50 for 50 to celebrate my 50th year. This week I made a batch of clam chowder in memory of the few months we lived in the Boston area. I made a healthier version than usual. My husband is working hard to lose some weight and so I cut back a lot of the fat and cream from the recipe. Plus the carrots I used came in several colors from yellow to orange and even a couple of purple carrots. Between not using cream and the colorful carrots it looks a bit different from your traditional clam chowder. But it still tasted good and we enjoyed it, just as we enjoyed our time in Boston.

My favorite memories of Boston include walks by the ocean. I love the ocean, that is the one bad thing about living in Utah, no ocean. I also loved the parks in the area we lived south of Boston. They were in a very natural state with lots of fun paths and the most interesting colors of mushrooms. I enjoyed the accent of the locals and all the wonderful trees. It is so green compared to the desert climate here. We had lots of fun going to antique auctions and came home with so much more stuff than we left with.

50 for 50 #48 – S.T.a.R. Party

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Me and Shannon

This week I got to get together with two good friends, Shannon and Tricia. The three of us worked together for several years with they young women in our church. We made a great team. Though each of us is very different in our life paths we were all born in the same year. We use to live just a couple of blocks apart and we would get together regularly for a S.T.a.R. party (for Shannon Tricia and Raelyn) but now I live 30 minutes from Tricia and Shannon lives in the mid-west. Tricia and I get together about once a month without Shannon. I think the last time the three of us got together was two years ago. But this week Shannon was in town, so we got to have a real S.T.a.R. party with all three of us. It was so much fun to talk and catch up with each other. It was the perfect way to celebrate my 50th (and theirs) year this week.

(I’ve haven’t gotten a copy of the photo that Tricia took of Shannon and me. I’ll add as soon as I can.)

50 for 50 #47 – Build a Snowman

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Frosty looking out the Cold Stone window

When I made a list of things I might like to do to celebrate turning 50 years old this year, I didn’t think that “build a snowman” would be a snowman out of candy. But that is how it turned out. If you have followed my blog much you know that I’ve built Frosty for several months now. Well today he is official built! I finished installing him in the window at Cold Stone Creamery on Redwood Road in South Jordan. He looks good and I’m excited for the unveiling tomorrow night. I won’t be cold but they are forecasting some rain. Hopefully it won’t come until after the unveiling. The install went fairly smoothly. A few little glitches but nothing major. It is amazing how tired I feel now that it is all in. I’ll post some photos of the completed window after the unveiling tomorrow night.

some of the miniature figures in the Frosty window

50 for 50 #46 – Cutting Down Our Christmas Tree

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Bill getting our tree back to the parking lot – 2012

Today we did one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We drove up into the mountains past Kamas, past Frances and past Woodland, to cut down our own Christmas tree. We have been doing this for something like 20 years so it makes a perfect way to celebrate my 50th year this week.We get up really early in the morning the first weekend in November to get a tree permit and then after Thanksgiving we gather with my sister and her family to get our trees. Some times we have had other family members join us but the two of us have always gone.

I remember the first year we got a permit to cut down our own tree, it was so cold and the wind was blowing and we hiked up a really steep hill through deep snow. When I remember that year, it amazes me that we ever did it again. It has never been that cold since. Plus a few year later they built a parking area that makes it easier.

Bill buried in snow – 2000

Some years we have no snow. Some years we have several feet of snow. A few years are extra memorable. One year Bill fell into a pocket in the snow over a ravine and was buried up to his head. Another year someone made a huge snowball and we took family photos on and around it.The Christmas we spent in Brooklyn, New York it worked out for us to come back and get a Christmas tree to take back with us. It was nice to have a bit of Utah with us in New York.

Bill, Shadow, Ginger, Danny, Kim, Jacob, Noreen & Eric – 2003

This year there was almost no snow at the parking lot but as we got up into the trees there was still several inches from the big storm we had a couple of weeks ago. It was extra warm today so we only needed sweat shirts or light jackets. After getting our trees we gather in the parking lot for backed potatoes and with hot chocolate and treats. We all enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the mountains that for me signals the real start of the Christmas season.

50 for 50 #45 – Juniors Cheesecake

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(Photo credit: karendotcom127)

For Bill’s birthday we ordered a Juniors Cheesecake. When we were in Brooklyn we enjoyed Juniors Cheesecakes and we brought a couple back to Utah with us when we moved from Brooklyn so I thought it would be a fun way to also celebrate my 50th year. We have invited his mom and brothers over for a birthday dinner, so that will make it a fun day for him. I need to make some sort of fruit sauce for the cheesecake. We have a bunch of pomegranates so I might try that. But I should probably have a more traditional flavor too. I think I might pick up some birthday candles too. We haven’t had birthday candles recently and I think it would be fun.

50 for 50 #44 – Dark Shadows

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One of my memories from my childhood when we lived in Ogden is watching Dark Shadows and eating chocolate frosting. It sounds a little crazy but me and my sister used to make frosting by taking Nestle’s Quick, some butter and a bit of milk and mix it up. It looked like frosty and it tasted yummy to my six-year-old sweet tooth. My mom was one to buy much in the way of candy but we usually hot chocolate milk mix, ice cream and graham crackers. I don’t know why we didn’t put our frosting on the graham crackers but I don’t remember it that way.

Anyway, for this weeks celebration of my 50th birthday I decided to get some of the old episodes of Dark Shadow’s from my childhood and eat chocolate frosting while eating some chocolate frosting. I checked out “Fan Favorites” and “The Best of Barnabas” Dark Shadows – The greatest Episodes Collections from our local library. But then Bill came home with the new Dark Shadows for Red Box, so we watched that. I should mention here that I’m not much of a fan of Johnny Depp or of Tim Burton so it wasn’t much of a surprise that I didn’t much like their version of Dark Shadows. It was interesting in some ways to see a modern interpretation of the story but one watching is enough for me. I definitely prefer the original even with its own short comings. It was a fun trip down memory lane though.