A Few More Pages ...

or we'll soon get to Christmas Day!

Day 21: The prompt was to take photos of your house that day -- in whatever condition it was in.

Day 20: Surprises in the Mail: I used a bunch of stamps and postmarks from the cards we received to make a pocket. Inside are the letter the choir received from our senior pastor about the Christmas cantata, and copies of the e-mails the store got from the Regional Manager and the District Manager (yes MR. PERSONALITY sent one) wishing us a happy holiday.

Day 19: A Letter to Father Christmas: A really hard one for me because I'm not into the Santa thing at all--never have been. So mine reads more like a letter to the editor explaining why I don't buy the whole concept. Loved the vintage paper and I like the finished page.

Enjoy,
Janet

A Wild 24 Hours ...

The last 24 hours have been, well, really bizarre. Last night after work a bunch of the girls from the store surprised Kristen with a baby shower at the nearby Don Pablos. We all had a good time laughing and eating and generally just hanging out...

Then, in case you didn't know, Sandy proclaimed today, January 25, "What a Difference a Year Makes" Day. It was on this date last year that she and her co-workers found out they were closing her office in July. She was THRILLED!! (A nice severance package helped.) Anyway, one year later, she is happily working full time at church as the administrative assistant in the Worship Department with a great group of people and all kinds of interesting things to do.

And then there was my day. Our district manager came for a visit and decided to tell our manager how awful everything was, etc. etc. etc. and that maybe she should consider stepping down. Talk about getting blind-sided!!! He left with no specifics as to what to improve and my manager in tears in her office. Mind you my manager was out on disability from August to the beginning of December and this was the first time she's seen him since the summer. MR. PERSONALITY AND TACT strikes again! Not to worry, when she gets over the shock of his comments, she'll be back fighting and the management will be there with her. (That's Yukie in the middle of the photo with the black shirt.)

Anyway, tomorrow is my day off and we're going out to church to help with the prep work for the Ladies Retreat next weekend. And hopefully I'll get more pages done.

Enjoy,
Janet

For Becca and Kelly ...

As you are aware by now, I'm busily finishing the Christmas Journal and after a slow and leisurely morning on Friday enjoying homemade cinnamon buns and trying out the hot chocolate pot I got as a Christmas gift, I FINALLY made it up to the studio to continue working. And this group of pages has some special ones for a couple of great scrapping friends in Omaha, NE.

Day 18: Christmas Dinner: I just did a menu and accented the page with photos of my Mom's nutcrackers.

Day 17: For Becca: Many of you probably have had the pleasure of spending time with B, either at CKU or CE, or perhaps you're familar with all her fundraising efforts for JDRF, well this is HER page. The prompt on this day was "I saw this and thought of you". Right after we got home from her Crop for a Cause, a boutique here in town finished their Christmas window display with all these BeccaGreen stars!! I passed the windows almost every day and always wanted to snatch the stars from the window and send them to B who would have certainly found a wonderful place to use them!

Day 16: Holiday Gatherings: This was a simple plan layout and a slight variation from the guests/visitors prompt. We never seem to find time to entertain, so I highlighted the special occasions with friends and family.

Day 15: Grateful: Again a straight forward formula.

Day 14: I Love Christmas Music: This one's for Kelly -- I highlighted the song, Twelve Days of Christmas, inside the little CD case, not only my favorite memories of the song, but the PNC Bank "Cost of the Gifts" and Kelly's new words that she used with her kids' choir at her church!

Off to cook dinner; maybe I'll get some more pages done and posted later tonight! I'll have "24" on so whether I'll be able to do anything is up for grabs! Then it's on to the Australian Open on ESPN2---

Enjoy,
Janet

I'm Done through Day 13

Yes , believe it or not I'm making great progress on the Christmas Journal. Was so psyched last night when I actually finished #13-- anyway, here's to days 9-13!

Day 9: Traditions: this features my favorite tradition, our church choir cantata. The photo flips up to reveal the journaling.

Day 10: All about Gift Wrap.

Day 11: Christmas Trees. I used a large print of our tree and cut around it and let it hang off the end of the page.

Day 12: What Changes do you see from holidays past? This is my rant on the commericalism of Christmas!

Day 13: How to Presents Get from under the Tree: a photo of our chief elf!

It's finally getting cold here, had to wear my winter coast and gloves today. They're even talking about snow flurries tomorrow night. The store has finally quieted down to a normal pace--kiddies have long since returned to school, the college students went back to class yesterday, and the returns/exchanges have slowed to an almost normal pace. Now we get a chance to clean and organize---something we haven't done since before Christmas! By the way, for those of you hooked on TV shows and needing to finish or start collections, here's an enabling alert: Barnes & Noble has TV Box Sets ($29.99 and up) on sale Buy 1, Get 1 FREE through the 30th of January. There's no limit and you should still have time to special order if you need something and have it here before the sale is over.

Looking forward to Friday (my regular day off) since it looks like a day to work in the studio! We've done the first phase of de-Christmasing --BYE BYE Tree ---, done more organizing in the studio, and I've been grocery shopping, paid bills, and I don't have to bake and cook all day. Look for more Christmas Journal pages then! I want to finish so that I can get back to those 1100 vacation photos.

Time to make dinner and then it's off to choir rehearsal!

Janet

Praise & Worship Night

and missing the Eagles-Giants game. It was all good! The Birds prevailed and the service was AWESOME!! For alot of reasons, FAC decided to have a praise and worship night on Sunday. It was great because lots of our worship musicians combined for an awesome praise band and we really got to sing---for a much longer extended time than the morning services allow. Our dance team did their thing too---- hope we do more of these in the future!

Janet

More Christmas Journal

I'm still working my way through the Christmas Journal and loving it. The goal is to finish by the end of January. Lots of good things are coming out of the process --- I really enjoyed the holiday this year AND I actually took lots of photos throughout the month to use in my journal.
I'm adding days 6, 7, and 8 here on this post; hopefully I'll get some more done in the next couple of days. Day 6 was to be a divided page-a good/not so good memory of Christmas. Day 7 was to talk about shopping and lists; receipts, still to get stuff, etc. Day 8 was about the changes you see as the season progresses and to use "little" things (that's why there's 20 little photos).

Otherwise, life here in NJ is getting back to normal; Claudia and Abany went home on Monday after our "2nd Christmas" with them last weekend. Had a great time just chilling out and going out for tea at the Mulberry Tea Room in Medford. We're going to de-Christmas this weekend :(
and clean up the studio. Doesn't that sound like fun????

Tonight, Mom and I are baking cookies to send with Jared's Christmas gift since he couldn't come with his mom and sister last weekend. College boy+homemade cookies: all will be well.
And I'm cleaning out the fridge; who knows what kinds of science projects are lurking there.

More later,
Janet