The Shafferland Shuffle

I feel like this last week has been busy, but not necessarily news-worthy. So it may not be the most interesting shuffle in the history of shuffles, but I shall soldier on and document!

* Last Sunday, Mom told us NOT to come out to visit. (She worries we spend too much time on her.) Her exact quote was, "I don't want to see you today." So naturally, we sent a selfie so she had to see us. Hee hee hee. Ryan was doing a big paperwork sorting project, but he paused for a nap, so Braeya "helped" by sitting on top of all the stacks while they were unoccupied. Me? Well, I just read blogs.

* On Monday, I did a full day road trip over to our old stomping grounds of Marion to deliver books to folks who wanted to use them for a Lenten study. It was like the days of yore, packing up my car for a day of commuting! While I was in town, I felt it only right to go to Poppy's Xtreme Donuts to get Ryan a treat! And after stopping to visit Mom, I discovered I had a treat of my own waiting when I got home...NEW SCRAPBOOKS ARRIVED!!!! Woot woot!

* Tuesday was crazy busy with all kinds of chores and errands, so I took just a quick second to sit and rest in the afternoon before hopping up to cook, because we had friends over for Tuesdays at the Table! This time we had friends from our old church in Marion. They hadn't seen our house yet, and we had a great time hosting them! :)

* Well Indiana proved the old adage true: March came in like a big old mad lion. Woke up at some ridiculous hour with weather radios going off and hail hitting the windows and the power going out. Whew! It finally calmed down, though. My sister came up to be with Mom that day, so I had the WHOLE DAY to work in the office. Braeya was so happy, she snuggled right up with me while I wrote! And it was the first day of the great spring capsule wardrobe project. More on that later!

* Thursday was our 51st monthiversary, and it was nothing but pure chaos and not much time together. Ryan didn't even get to come home for lunch that day, so I took lunch to him and we ate in his cloffice. By the time we got around to taking our official photo that night, we were both exhausted, I'd had a massive meltdown, and it took THIRTY TRIES to get one good photo. (And I don't even really like IT. I was just tired of redoing it!)

* By Friday, we were just pooped. I tried to cram in steps during the day, and Braeya kept high-fiving me whenever I walked by the bathroom. Ryan and I had plans for a double date that night, but we had to reschedule it, so we just stayed home and watched a movie. It was much-needed down time! And at the end of the night, Braeya played hide-and-seek with us. Do you see her?

* Ryan had to work yesterday, so I stayed home and did work there. We'd awakened to snow, but it melted off when the sun came up, and it was just a nice blanket/work/coffee/sunshine kind of day. We had to run some errands, so we went for coffee, and found out it was a BOGO day for macchiatos. SWEET! We went to visit Mom, and check out the amazing sunset we got to see! And with that...our crazy week was complete!

Scrapbooking in Shafferland

Yesterday, Maria asked if I could do a post sometime on how I go about scrapbooking. Well, Maria, you hit a passionate topic nerve, so today is "sometime!" {PS - I meant that in a wonderful way!}

Sometimes people ask me how I got into scrapbooking, because it wasn't something my mom particularly loved to do. Don't get me wrong: she took pictures and we had photo albums of life and vacations, but "scrapbooking" wasn't trendy back in the late 70's and 80's when I was a kid. I got my first taste of it as a senior in high school, when I bought the Senior Memories book from the Herff Jones representative and proceeded to glue every single thing that happened that year into the pages. By graduation day, my book was deliciously fat and the cover sat at an impressive 90 degree angle. And I'm pretty sure that's when my love of scrapbooking was born.

College afforded no time for such frivolities, but it did afford me a few trips to Creative Memories home parties, where I learned the joy of scalloped scissors and double sided tape and archive quality pages. I learned how horrid those magnetic photo albums were and how I needed to run home right then and rip all my photos from the pages before they slid one millimeter closer to yellow ruin.

And then I graduated and became a grown up with little money and lots of time, and somehow, scrapbooking became my thing. From 2000 to 2011, I scrapbooked in the huge, thick 12x12 albums, purchased refill pages in bulk when Hobby Lobby ran sales, and spent many a weekend from morning until late in the night cutting and arranging and journaling and embellishing my pages. Had I kept going at that rate, we would have to have one full bedroom devoted to albums, because they're so huge.

In 2011, I discovered Picaboo, which is a digital scrapbooking site. There are many such sites (Shutterfly, Snapfish, MixBook, Blurb, and more) but Picaboo was where I began and it remains my only love in the digital scrapbooking world. We have a smooth relationship now. It understands me, I understand it, and we crank out albums at alarming rates.

I love digital scrapping for many reasons. It's much cleaner than traditional scrapping. I don't have to drag out supplies and make a mess and clean it up a few hours later. I can scrapbook anywhere, as long as I have my laptop and a wifi password. I can make books for days and order them whenever a good sale hits. The books look neat and professional, and they fit in tidy rows on a bookshelf. I can make photos inside as big or small as I want, I can journal to my heart's content, and cost-wise, I pay no more (maybe less, if the sale is good!) than I did with traditional scrapping, because I don't have to pay for photo prints and embellishments and ink and all those things.

So with all that said, how do I do it?

1. I have four chronological books each year. I (clearly) take a LOT of pictures. So to keep the cost factor manageable, I make one album for every quarter of the year. These albums house the memories of our everyday life. The covers have three pictures of the two of us, one from each month represented in the book.

The inside "cover page" has three more pictures of the two of us (one from each month represented in the book) and a quick recap of the highlights of life in that quarter.

I have one spread for each month of the book that includes all the daily collages you see on the Shafferland Shuffle each week. In that way, every single day of our year is represented in these chronological books.

From there, the rest of the pages are filled with the pictures and stories of our dates, holidays, adventures, county tours, trips - anything that keeps a record of that month.

 

I work on these books almost every Sunday afternoon, because scrapbooking is a restful treat to me. I try not to get more than a month behind in these books because I want to write about our days while they're still fresh in my mind. And honestly, my goal is to try to keep it current each week, but sometimes I get behind.

A page about a particular event contains a title, however many pictures I want to use to document it, and some journaling that tells the story of that event. At the end of each journaling box, I put the date(s) for that event so if I need to go back and see exactly when something happened, it's easy to do so.

2. My albums look "scrapbooky." Picaboo has SO MANY WAYS to do albums. You can make a true photo album, where you just drag and drop your pictures in rows, write a caption, and go on. Or you can do pretty backgrounds like a scrapbook, make shapes with your photos, put mats behind them, and the whole nine yards. That part is up to your preference. I like the scrapbook look, so I mix square and round photos, use photo borders (mats), and put cute backgrounds behind them. That's just my style.

3. I record names!!!! Unless the photos are of just Ryan and me (which I consider to be fairly obvious), I label each photo with the names of the people pictured. Even if they're family! Since Ryan's family  has so many kids, I know there might come a day when I look at a photo and wonder which kid it is. (Siblings can look awfully alike when they're little!) And for friends and co-workers, I know there might come a day when those people might not be part of my regular life and while I think now I would always remember their names, what if eventually I forget?? So I label every picture with FULL NAMES for that purpose.

4. I make specialty albums. Every vacation we take, every major life event (wedding, reception, our move last year, etc.) gets its own album. The events are still included in my regular albums, but at a much more abbreviated level. For example, when we take a vacation, I'll do two or three pages in the annual chronological albums to reflect the vacation, but the full story goes in another book all its own.

In those books, I'm a stickler for details. I still record the events chronologically, but I go into MUCH greater detail so I can always remember the fun we had!

In these albums, I'll include pictures of not only our adventures, but also details I might want to come back to later just to see how life has changed. I always take pictures of our hotel rooms, because who knows what hotel rooms will look like in 20 years? I know they sure look different now from 20 years ago! I also like to get pictures of things like welcome signs from each state, restaurants where we eat, the vehicle we're driving, scenery from the area, etc.

Sometimes I'll include trivia facts I find online. For example, when we went to French Lick for our anniversary this past December, we took tours of the two big hotels in town. We learned a lot of information on those tours, and I couldn't remember it all. But I found detailed stories online of the hotels and some of what we learned on the tours, so I included that in the scrapbook. It becomes a history book of sorts while recording memories.

I also record funny stories of things that happened, because while you think you'll never forget something, you will. Having those things written down in detail really helps. Because this is something I like to include, I try to do the specialty books as soon as I can after an event. If I feel it's going to take a while, I'll record the stories I want to be sure to have in a Word document or something and copy and paste it when the time comes.

5. Great gift ideas! When my niece got married last year, I asked her if she would like me to make her wedding album as a gift. {I had made her high school years album and her graduation day album as gifts for her in years gone by.} She said yes, so after the wedding, she sent me all the pictures she wanted in the book, and I assembled it. I used the same background on every page so it looked clean and professional, and I kept the verbiage in this book to a minimum. A few titles here and there, and I did insist on labeling the members of the family and wedding party pictures (see above reasoning), but otherwise, this album was just full of pictures.

She wanted to give albums as gifts to her parents and her husband's parents for Christmas, and the BEAUTIFUL thing about digital scrapping is you can make duplicates of an album and change details as necessary. So I made two duplicates of her album and then changed the wording from "our wedding" to "our daughter's wedding," etc. and changed the cover photos to match her requests for each set of parents. I love this duplicate feature, because it saves so much time!

For people who don't enjoy scrapbooking, books like these make great gifts. I've made many over the years, traditionally and digitally, and they've always been really well received.


Obviously this is not the ONLY way to scrapbook, but it's how I do it, and I hope it gives you an idea or two. Any questions? Let me know! 

Linking up with the birthday girl!

Gallbladder Eviction Day

I'm writing this to you on Sunday evening. Ryan is asleep on Mo, and if I'm guessing my logos right, it appears the Packers and the Cowboys are duking it out on TV. Braeya is curled up beside me, which is rare. She always picks Ryan over me.

And right now, I'm thinking about tomorrow, which will be today when you read it. Today Ryan gets to have his gallbladder evicted. I'm not even sure I really caught everyone up to speed on that in a formal way last week. We went to see the surgeon on Wednesday, and as he listened to Ryan's heartbeat through his stethoscope, he sort of randomly threw out the information as a side note.

"Oh, by the way. Found a cancellation on my schedule. We can do the surgery Monday."

Monday? As in less than a week from now Monday?

Indeed, apparently. Ryan and I just sat, jaws dropped, staring at one another across the examination room. One of those moments when God hands you the exact answer you prayed for, but you're shocked out of your ever-loving mind because you never actually imagined you'd get that answer. Surgery in five days is unheard of! I mean, the doctor told me mine needed to come out immediately, and one month later it did. We were expecting a repeat of that.

But history did not repeat itself, and that is how today came to be surgery day. Ryan is perfectly calm about it. Excited, even. He misses his pizza and, well, most food. He's eager to have options beyond chicken and fish. He's excited to think about days that don't include ongoing discomfort. He misses normal, and so do I.

But I'm nervous, and if you know me, this should not surprise you at all. I know gallbladder surgery is ridiculously routine. This surgeon probably has hundreds - even thousands - of them under his belt. This is just another day at the office for him, and for the routineness of it, I am profoundly grateful. People certainly go in for much more serious and delicate procedures, and that is not lost to me.

But just the same, it's surgery, and it's Ryan's first surgery ever in life, actually. And he's my love, and I get teary-eyed thinking about handing him over to a guy I met five days ago and a team of helpers I've never met. {And I've secretly hoped the really nice nurse that prayed over me when I freaked out in the OR gets to be on that team. She was amazing.}

I spent part of today {yesterday, for you} scrapbooking our Christmas, and I just laughed and cried all the way through the pictures. The ridiculous set of awkward family photos we tried to take with Braeya, where she gouged Ryan and led to all manner of crazy faces.

The joy on his face when he opened Daryl the drone and the joy he's had in the many days since, learning to operate him, while I duck and dive out of the way from my perch on the couch.

The way he stood and prayed over his brother at the family Christmas, after his brother prayed for all the men of the family.

And not just Christmas, but every day. Every day is sweeter when lived by Ryan's side. He always makes me laugh. Always.

He prays over me, encourages me, supports my dreams, invests himself wholeheartedly in our families and friendships, and works hard every day to bring joy to everyone around him.

He has taken the last almost month of illness like a champ. He's changed his diet {and subsequently his lifestyle} without complaint. He's braved the pain, and because I've had it, I know how much it hurts. He's gone to every test and waited with much more patience and trust than I have. He's been a great example, even in this mess.

This man is my love, and today I'm praying for a safe and successful surgery. One that will relieve his pain and let him return to the life and food he loves.

On the day of my surgery, Ryan wrote the blog, and he ended it by telling me he loved me and he'd be there when I woke up. And he was. He sat with me and helped me get safely home and cared for me in recovery. He took care of my sickness in his health. And now I return the favor.

Ryan, I love you so much. I'm grateful for this miracle of a quick surgery, and today I am praying over you and the team who cares for you. You are my joy, and I"ll be here when you wake up.

Forever my love,

Your Awesome Sauce

The Shafferland Shuffle

* I think we tried ALL the seasons this week, starting with our first real, beautiful frost last Sunday morning. Ryan took pictures of it all on his own! {A thousand husbandly points!} We got our first red cups of the season, and I replaced all the pictures in our living room wall collage, using the new ones we had taken this fall. Add about 29 pages of scrapping to that and it was a full Sunday!

* Monday was the same busy day Monday always is, but I had the added bonus of a whole new crop of Hallmark Christmas movies to watch, because I remembered there are TWO Hallmark channels! WOO HOO!!!!! In the afternoon, I had a fun treat: my friend Elisa came all the way from Fort Wayne to visit me and see our new house! Loved that! :) And that night, we saw the first of this week's spectacular moon viewing!

* Just as I was about to fix lunch on Tuesday, Ryan texted and asked if I was up for a lunch out at Wendy's. Don't have to twist my arm! I'll take a surprise, impromptu lunch date! :) We had Bible study that night and ran some errands while we were out, which included a trip to Lowe's...should we get this TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLAR lawn ornament?? And that night we contacted Fitbit about replacing mine...because I didn't think the taped together version would hold much longer. They were so great about replacing it!

* You already read about  my "interesting" Wednesday, when Starbucks was out of all the drinks I wanted, I almost put diesel in the car, and all kinds of crazy things happened. BUT! It was also the day all our Christmas cards arrived in the mail! YAY!! I am excited: ready to start addressing! Ryan found the latest update on Sonic when he was out and about, and he even pitched in to help work on the office wreath by being the official spray-painter! What a good work sport he is!

* After 2 days of working on website creation, I needed movies and naps! My brain was so tired by the end of Thursday, I couldn't think at all. Ryan came home from work and did what we hope is the final mowing for this year, and I went for a run/walk to clear my head. Gorgeous sunset and PERFECT running weather!

* Friday night, we had a first here in Shafferland: craft night hosted in the garage! It was sort of a random last-minute idea, but I invited a handful of girls over (most were Ryan's co-workers) to just have fun. Bring a snack, bring a craft, and come hang out for the evening! LITERALLY in the hour they arrived, the weather switched to winter, and we had a sudden temperature drop and horrible thunderstorms with tons of wind and rain, but we were cozy and warm little crafters in the garage!

* And yesterday, Ryan and I spent the entire day together - Christmas shopping! Yes, it's true! He had a day off work, so we headed to Indianapolis to shop and enjoy a whole day of fun {in the wind, rain and snow} together! We also had dinner at his cousins' house, which was a fun way to end the day! The only one unhappy was Braeya, who did not approve of our absence!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday was our 46th monthiversary, and we were excited it fell on a weekend, so we could spend time together! We went to church, made a pizza together, took naps, watched football, and even made an evening run to the Hydration Station so we could have frosted caramel apple drinks. {Those are, incidentally, incredible.}

* Monday was a CRAZY foggy morning in town. I'm not sure I've ever seen that much fog INSIDE a town, actually. I had to do my carpool job, so I drove carefully, and wouldn't you know - by the time I got to the OTHER side of town, it was clear! Crazy! Worked on writing all day and then it was time for family workouts {don't let this one fool you; she did NOT work out} and the application of much Thieves oil, as I could tell I was fighting something, and I wasn't happy about it. 

* Tuesday was our 4th engagementversary. but it was also Tuesdays at the Table night, so we didn't have much time for celebrating on our own. We had Ryan's grandma and her husband over for dinner, and it was their first time to see our home since we moved! Fall breakfast for dinner, with an egg casserole and pumpkin pancakes: delicious!

* Wednesday was another writing day for me, broken up by the arrival of the Bicentennial Torch Relay. I'll fill you in on all that tomorrow, but it was fun to be part of a smidgen of history in the making that day!

* Thursday, there was a big carry-in at Ryan's work, so I made a taco dip and took that over {and then stayed to munch on a few snacks}. My parents have a little project they need to have done at their house, so that night, we went supply shopping with them and they treated us to dinner! Win-win!

* Friday was a sick day for me. This cold I've come down with is so weird. It skipped right over the stuffy head and snotty part {fine with me...I hate that part anyway} and went right to congestion and coughing. While I don't feel bad, I also can't sleep because of the coughing, so by Friday morning, I was worn out. Ryan told me to stay in bed, and I did!! Worked on scrapbooking projects and took it easy all day. He even ordered pizza so I didn't have to cook dinner!

* Yesterday we had a wedding in the family! Ryan's cousin Noelle got married, so after he got off work, we drove to Indianapolis for the wedding! Got to hang out with his family and even play on the playground with the kids, which is always a bonus! :) Great way to end the week!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Quick note at the start of today's post to say the winner of the $25.00 gift card to the Simply Bliss Boutique is...........{imaginary drumroll}.........TAMAR!!!!!!!!! I'll email you, Tamar, to get the info transferred to the good folks at Simply Bliss!

And now...for our week!

* Last Sunday was a perfectly lazy day in Shafferland, and we loved it. Napping, scrapbooking, football, sunset walks...that's a good day.

* I spent most of Monday writing and editing, so it was a day of laptops and coffee! Ryan and I had to run some errands that evening, so we stopped to buy some pumpkins so I could decorate the outside of the house. {NOTE: I did not buy all these pumpkins. LOL!!!} And at the last minute, I found out I needed to make a breakfast food for Ryan to take to a carry-in on Tuesday, so I made maple bacon sweet rolls. Pretty tasty!

* Tuesday was dental appointment day, so I had to make a quick run to Fort Wayne and back. I got my usual Starbucks post-dentist reward, and they accidentally made it cold instead of hot. Kinda pretty though, don't you think? That night was our first "Tuesdays at the Table" event, and we had Ryan's dad and step-mom over. It was a great night!

* Wednesday, I had our nephews and niece all day. We stayed so busy!! {AKA I had all my steps in early in the day!} They even got to go hang out with Ryan at the hospital while I did my carpool run. They thought that was pretty cool! And when the day was over, I took a nap. Whew!

* Thursday morning, I walked into the living room to find Braeya licking the daylights out of the carpet. Turns out one of the kids' snack puffs had gotten ground into the carpet and she was having a snack! HA!!! I spent the day writing and reading, and saying HELLO to our mums, which finally bloomed!

* Friday was another long day of writing, and I pulled out the old-school note-taking skills! Ryan and I took advantage of the gorgeous evening for a walk and then squeezed in a date night, complete with a trip to Starbucks for our reward drinks. That was the good news. The bad news was that the barista didn't hear me tell her {twice} that I had a reward, so I bought my drink!

* Yesterday was a massive baking day in Shafferland. I made a whole sampler platter of fall deliciousness {to share...no giving up the eating changes!} and the house smelled so good! AND I put up a new Lindsay Letters piece of art. I think it completes the house for fall!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Before I recap our week, I want to pause to acknowledge the significance of this day in our nation. This year I had the opportunity to meet Jennifer Sands, whose husband died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. After hearing her speak and reading her books, I have a fresh empathy for the hurt and devastation suffered by the families who lost loved ones on that day. My heart is tender toward them, especially on this day.

* Last Sunday was our very last Sunday to serve coffee at our church. We will {sometime in the next few months} be transitioning to a new church closer to home, so we resigned from all our activities at church. We got to watch a beautiful sunrise on the way to church, we served our coffee, and we rested all day. That evening, some friends invited us over for dinner, and I gotta tell you: that was one delicious meal!

* Monday was Labor Day, but Ryan worked, so I scrapbooked! Pretty rough holiday. We watered our flowers that afternoon, and I noticed there are still HUNDREDS of blooms on our big purple whatever-it-is bush. It's fall! Still blooming! When Ryan came home form work, he sat down and read in my book. How happy did that make my heart??

* I spent all my "work time" this week preparing for the retreat I have spoken at this weekend. Tuesday's activity was to style my book table, so I would know exactly how I wanted it when I arrived at the retreat. Took me back to my WBCL days! I also baked a loaf of healthy zucchini bread, which was absolutely delicious, and I worked out alongside my trusty helper. Hey. I was at least glad she did something besides roll over and take a bath while I gasped for air!

* Wednesday I worked more on my retreat prep, and Braeya was so over it...she just waited by the front door for Ryan to come home from work. I was so caught up in working that I forgot to take a shower until about 4 p.m. Needless to say, it was not my finest hair day. Ryan still loved me though, and even treated me to a giant cupcake {we shared} from cupcake week at the cake shop. Sigh. Of. Love.

* Thursday, we had an unexpected treat when Ryan got almost the whole day off work! Since we weren't going to get to spend our weekend together, he took advantage of that opportunity and we ran errands, visited his favorite Chinese restaurant, and worked to get me all packed for the retreat. We went on a walk at sunset...which, by the way, was STUNNING.

-Enter Ryan finishing the blog since Bekah is gone.  Deep breath.  How much can I screw up in two days.....or make even better!!!-

*Friday was a bittersweet day.  It was the day Bekah left me alone for the weekend to see if I could survive without her.  So she went on a weekend getaway with the ladies where there was much serenity, spas and all you can eat pizza OR possibly it was the retreat she has been working on for months where she would be speaking about Being Still.  I guess you'll have to check in next week to see the details about what really happened!

*Saturday was a big day on Bekah's "Retreat Weekend".  We will all look forward to hearing all about it.  Meanwhile, when I was trying to appropriately deal with my bachelor weekend I spent the majority of the day working and consoling a crying cat who is basically inconsolable.  In my spare time I prepared my self for the Colts opening day on Sunday and a new football season!

This is Ryan Shaffer signing off from Shafferland.  Tomorrow you will be back to your regular scheduled writer. I promise.

Linking up!