Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Bounty!

As I have confessed to some of you (and maybe even here) my trip to the States resulted in the need to ship 18 boxes of stuff back to myself. Stuff that would not fit in my suitcase. Opening these boxes has been like a second Christmas.

Five of the boxes were filled with my haul from Aunt Ginny. I want to be able to tell this story correctly, and with reverence, but it is so exciting to me that I might just have to stick to the facts, ma'am. My Aunt Ginny had a friend who recently passed away. The mother of the deceased was in a quandary regarding what to do with many of my aunt's friend's things. My helpful and, dare I say, brilliant Aunt Ginny offered to take her friend's stamping and card-making supplies off her friend's mother's hands for a song. A song.

So, while we were visiting her in Virginia, my godmother casually said "So, I was wondering if you ever did any stamping or paper crafting..." Now, while there are some things I will never admit to my Women's Studies friends at a Harvard reunion, I can admit to you all here that my recent (as in over the last year) obsession with scrapbooking and cardmaking has taken over a good chunk of my life and my dining room.

My benevolent godmother and I went into her guest room and she pulled out from under the beds 16 shoe boxes of supplies. Long story short, we loaded them all into my parents' car, and here they are stacked up on the table in my parents' Carolina room at their house:



The first thing I did was to unload and sort all the stamps. Survey the view!







Next, I packed them back into the boxes, labelled of course. (OCD, anyone?)



Then, I laid out all the ink pads, and separated them into pigment-based inks and dye-based inks.




Not pictured are the other random supplies; pens, rubbing cards, blank cards and cardstock, doo-dads, ribbon, etc.

Once I clear my dining room table (here in Germany) of the paperwork I need to do (it's bill-paying time), then I will unpack the 5 boxes I sent to myself and re-re-organize the stamps. Only problem is... where to put them all? I'm thinking a small bookcase in the nook behind the door in my downstairs bathroom will have to suffice. "Hi, welcome to my home, and while you are peeing, please feel free to stamp up a card to send home to your loved ones..."

Sunday, January 20, 2008

365 Days And Counting

Did anyone else notice the date? Only one more year with this guy at the helm, people. To quote a dear friend: "THREE YAYS!"

Mea Culpa

It has been brought to my attention by a good number of you that I have been neglecting my blog duties! I don't have any really viable excuses other than that I was too busy in the States having a damn good time, and now that I am back in Germany I am too busy unpacking, trying to remember how to do laundry, catching up on my "volunteer" duties, and re-baby-proofing my house.

Jillsie is now 18 months old--a tried and true toddler. She can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (aka "Teekle Teekle Diddy Stah") and occasionally speaks in complete sentences ("I sittin'" or "I hold Mommy hand" or "I need coffee"). We both miss all of our friends and family whom we visited in the States like you wouldn't believe, but we are also pretty psyched to be back on our own turf, catching up with our friends here. Zephie & Tilly are also faring well (survived the flight quite well this time), and the Gutsy Dad is staying safe and staying out of trouble.

Now, without further ado, I will get to what you all really want anyway.... some pictures. Before I jump back in time to tell you about what we've been up to since Thanksgiving, let me show you something more recent. Here is Jillsie practicing "Old McDonald" on my parents' piano last week. She only knows he e-i-e-i-o part. She also likes to get down and dance along with her singing, when she is not accompanying herself on piano...