My Life List

1. Columbia, South Carolina zoo w/Mom
2. Augusta River Tour
3. Augusta Ghost Tour
4. Atlanta History Center
5. Noah's Ark
6. Spend a weekend w/Missi - just us
7. Scrapbook w/my mom and my sister
8. Take the Jacksonville (Florida) boat cruise on the river
9. Go back to Washington DC and visit all the Smithsonian Museums
10. Go back to Phoenix
11. Vacation in Hawaii
12. Take an Alaskan cruise
13. Visit the Great Lakes and see all the lighthouses
14. Get a tablet PC
15. Visit Gettysburg.
16. Go to Utah and visit all the scrapbook stores 
17. Teach my dog to walk on the treadmill
18. Get a DVR in my scrapbook room
19. Plant a magnolia tree in our yard
20. Visit Williamsburg, Virginia
21. Visit New England in the fall
22. Visit Boston
23. Visit Philadelphia
24. Go back and assign labels to all the posts on this blog
25. Get to where I'm only six months out on scrapbooking
26. Take Daisy to a dog park
27. Do a pet emergency plan
28. Update my will
29. Have a session with John Edward.
30. See the San Diego Zoo.
31. Read all the books I own.
32. Visit Austin, Texas
33. Visit Austrailia

My genealogy life list can be viewed http://gatapleytree.blogspot.com.

After a While

After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand

and chaining a soul

and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning

and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren't contracts and

presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of a woman

not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting

for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn

that you really can endure

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye you learn.

-- Unknown

A trip to the High side

Today, Stacey, Mom and I ate lunch at The Varsity in Atlanta.  I don't care how cold it is, that chili dog and onion rings (oh and the fries) make it worth the drive AND the walk across the parking lot!

After lunch, we went over the the High Museum of Art to see the Salvador Dali - The Late Work exhibit.  It has been in town for months, but of course we wait until one of the coldest days of the year to go!  I have only a passing interest in art... I know very little about it.  I can recognize a Monet and maybe Dali's surrealism work.  That's about it.  However, Stacey is a huge admirer of his work, so there we were.  The flier for the exhibit reads:  "Get to know Salvador Dali, whose larger-than-life personality is as well known as his art.  With more than 100 works - including paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs - this exhibition explores Dali's fascination with science, religion, and illusionism, and his surprising connections to such artists and celebrities of the 1960s and 1970s as Andy Warhol and Alice Cooper."

I can say that it was a HUGH exhibit.  An entire floor of the museum.  Room after room of his work and information about his work... plus a gift shop!  Dali was no doubt a brilliant man, but as I said over and over today, I would not have wanted to live in his head.  I'm not sure when he had time to paint... he was so interested in science and religion and many other subjects.  All in all, it was a good exhibit... there were some things that made me laugh, some things that made me shake my head, and some things that just made me wonder.

At the gift shop, Stacey got a package of 10 note cards of various Dali paintings and split them with me.  The one shown here is called "The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, 1952-54." (I say that's me!)  We also purchased magnets and packages of stickers of actual Dali quotes to use in our scrapbooks. 

Photographs were not allowed in the exhibit, but a really helpful and nice museum employee took our picture in the lobby (which was totally blurry - it's always a gamble when I let someone else hold my camera).  We also went down to Peachtree Street and took a picture of the front of the museum with the Dali poster hanging on the building.  The High Museum is one of my favorite pieces of architecture in Atlanta.  It is a beautiful building.

Another entertaining day in Atlanta...

I need to scrap!

Well, I see that I did not even finish the posts about the Family History Expo.  November turned into a very busy month!  The Expo put me on an "everything genealogy" path, and I have not scrapbooked in probably more than a month.  I did go in my room and clean up one day, but that's it.  Almost every day I think to myself, "I will go in my scrapbook room 'in the morning' or 'this afternoon' or 'tonight'" and it never happens.  I am too preoccupied with genealogy at the moment.  Genealogy requires a LOT of reading.  I was two months behind on genealogy newsletters and it seems that every one has at least 5+ links to follow and check out!  I try to print out the really important stuff to keep for when I really need it.  The rest I scan or save the link for later.  It's crazy.

I did have a couple of photo-taking opportunities in November.  (That's me... tons of photos taken, few scrapbooked!)  Mom had carpel tunnel surgery on her right hand on November 17th.  I went over the afternoon before and stayed with her for about 3 days.  It was actually a simple, straightforward surgery, and it makes it seem a lot more doable for myself - because I WILL have to have it some day.  That's inevitable.  But anyway, I did take a picture of her with her bandaged hand and her nurse, Yarko the cat, on the day of the surgery:

Isn't he sweet - looking over her like that?  Most likely, he was waiting for a treat...

I also took a few pictures of her rotten kitty-cats.  Aren't all pets spoiled rotten?  That's how it should be.  

Of course I took pictures at Thanksgiving.  We hosted this year, the first time in a long, long time.  Many years.  Tracy fried a turkey, I made black-eye peas, green bean casserole, rolls, and banana pudding (my first!).  Tracy's mother brought the dressing and a chocolate cake.  Mom brought cranberry sauce.  It was more than enough food for just the five us us.  I really went all out and used my grandmother's china with cloth napkins; Tracy made a beautiful centerpiece; and Zeus managed to stay off the dining room table!! 

I ordered some prints from York the other day.  I am still ordering prints from our Washington DC trip - which was a year and a half ago!  I used to tell people in my scrapbooking classes not to feel behind - this is a hobby.  Like anything else in our life - work projects, housecleaning duties, holiday preparations, volunteer duties, etc. - you can become so overwhelmed and bogged down that you get nothing done.  'Why go in there if I don't have the entire day to work?  I won't get anything done in just an hour.' Or 'By the time I get everything out, I'll just have to put it all back again!' Now I find myself falling into this same trap.  Yesterday, I had in the back of my mind that I would scrapbook for the day.  Well, we get up and find that there are several chores that need to be done.  So we start on that.  And I'm thinking that we'll finish by lunch and I'll have the afternoon in my scrapbook room.  Then I finish my chores before Tracy, and I find myself sitting down at my computer.  That is ALWAYS a mistake.  I end up being there until almost 3pm.  I look up, see the time, and think "Well, it's too late to go in the scrapbook room now.  By the time I start, it'll be time for dinner!"  Blah, blah, blah.  Same old excuses. So I took a nap instead.  And then after Tracy goes to bed, I go right back to my computer... no use starting scrapbooking that late at night!  It's a vicious cycle.

I need to take my own advice and stop thinking about how "behind" I am.  I am just not motivated to scrapbook right now.  The main reason is my current genealogy obsession.  I have always either worked on one or the other - one falls by the wayside while I concentrate on the other hobby for a time.  I guess the other reason boils down to maybe I don't self-motivate well.  I have that wonderful scrapbook room that Tracy worked so hard on, and yet I don't go in there by myself much.  I think most scrapbookers are the same; we would all rather scrap at our own house with our own stuff.  Let's face it - it's a pain to plan layouts and/or pack up all that stuff to take somewhere else.  And yet... we can't seem to get going without a "get-together" of scrapbookers to justify it.  Ahhh... do you see the Catch-22? 

So I'm working on a new plan.  I bought a webcam.  I can hook it up to my laptop right by my scrapbook table, make a video call to other scrapbook buddies with webcams, and we can all scrapbook in the comfort of our own rooms, and still have that camaraderie.  Others to bounce ideas off of and to look at what we're working on. To ooh and ahh at our efforts and give us an instant boost to our self-esteem that will mostly likely motivate us to keep going.  The plan has not actually come to fruition yet.  I have one scrapbooking friend who has gotten a webcam, and we have not tried the actual scrapbooking together yet.  I'm still talking to others.  But I'd sure like to give it a try - cause I am sooooo behind and I NEED to scrapbook!  LOL