March Progressive Scrap

The Progressive Scrap at TheStudio is one of my highlights of the month!

There was a beautiful kit to play with this month, and here's what I came up with!

That's my lovely DIL. She loves purples, and I wanted to showcase how pretty she is. She is such a sweetheart!

As always, I do have a QP made up for this Progressive scrap here.
Enjoy!

Grand Canyon

The first of many pics from our day trip to the Canyon this week. This one I put together for the Word of the Week challenge over at Stuff to Scrap. I couldn't get it to upload there, so I finally decided I'd put it here and link it~

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Not my usual fare here, I know, but too cute to pass up today!

He's no Leprechaun, but he still is...

Ren Faire!

Finally finished up my pages from the Ren Faire this year~

A grand time was had by all, and most of us ended up with new hats too! :)

One Touch

I've been looking for a way to scrap this pic of my folks. I just love how it says so much about them just in their touch.

DesignZ by DeDe had a challenge and I was able to use the pic to create this page-

Man do I hate being so far away from my folks...sigh...

Lenten Thoughts week 3

Lent always reminds me of when I came in to the Church. All of the studying, learning and prayer leading to the Rite of Election, the Scrutinies, and culminating in the Easter Vigil and my Profession of Faith.
We had the First Scrutiny today. A time of reflection, a time for the community to pray over the elect.

I got to tell Kristin about the Rite of Election a couple of weeks ago and that was cool.

So, no reflection on the reading today, but reflecting and remembering on my journey home.

Lenten Thoughts week 2

It's been an oddly busy and unmotivated week for me. Mass this morning brought a wonderful sense of joy that I've been lacking of late.

We had the story of the Transfiguration on the mountain for our Gospel today. There is so much I could write about it. How it shows the primacy of Peter in the apostles because Jewish law required two witnesses for things (Peter's testimony required the presence of James and John) . Or, how it shows that apparitions (in the Catholic sense) are Biblical. Or, the more standard themes about preparing to climb the mountain to meet Jesus or God's command to the apostles (and us) to LISTEN to him.

Those are all good and valid comments on the reading, but today I was struck by something Fr. Jorge said about coming down the mountain. We need to remember that while we can certainly experience Jesus in the high time of our lives, the mountaintop times, he is also with us and wanting us to experience him in the low times too. It's so easy for me to get into a deep blue funk and forget that Jesus is with me there too. It may not be the life changing encounter on the mountain, but he is THERE, really present with me in the valleys too.

The mountaintop experiences may change us in dramatic ways, but the encounters with Christ in the valleys of life can be just as powerful in their own quiet way.

Then we sang 'Amen, el Cuerpo de Christo' as our communion song. It's one that really strikes a chord in me.

I'd love to print the lyrics here for you, but I cannot find them available online. You'll have to check your hymnal and see if you can find them. Such a moving song!


And now off to meet Brian and Share for lunch. Beautiful day!

Lenten Thoughts

Today at Mass, Deacon Robinson encouraged us to make time to take inventory of our lives. Look at our temptations. Maybe there are temptations of gossip, worry, pornography, lust, anger, laziness, or over indulgence.  But we also need to be aware of the temptations of complacency and mediocrity. These temptations can be even more dangerous. They are sneaky. How can I root out the complacency in my life? That will be my prayer this week.

Lord, help me to see the areas of my life and my heart where I have grown complacent and set me on fire for you once again.

Some more catching up again! :)

Well, with doing weekly challenges over at Stuff to Scrap, biweekly and monthly ones at Digital Scrapper, and speed scraps and progressive scraps at theStudio, I've been keeping busy!

Here's a sampling of what I've been up to!

This last one is available as a QP again over here. Chris had sent me a couple of scans of pics of my grandparents and this one fit so nicely with the colors of the kit I just had to use it!

Happy Anniversary my Love!

Thirteen years ago, I raced up South Mountain, chasing the sunset to meet my sweetie and tie the knot. We missed the sunset, but by the light of the headlights of a Dale Earnhart key chain we were married by our good friend Jessie.

Then, ten years ago, I could barely contain myself during my RCIA class where we had arranged with Fr. Leo to convalidate our marriage after the session on the Sacrament of Matrimony. The rest of the class didn't know about the 'object lesson' and it was a wonderful surprise and a beautiful ceremony.

Now, in 2012, as we celebrated our 13/10 anniversary, life just keeps getter better and better!

Unconditional Love

With Valentine's day being this week there was a lot of talk about love on the radio. Apparently I missed the Ultimate Issues hour on Dennis Prager's show where he talked about whether unconditional love was a good thing. Bill Bennett had called in to join in the discussion, and replayed it on his show the next day. That's where I came in.

I won't really get in to the discussion of is unconditional love a good thing or not, but what struck me was that in my experience women tend to love unconditionally to a greater degree than men. Granted, there are certainly exceptions, but you here so much more about women who even after leaving their abuser or unfaithful husband still talk about how they still love him. My mom and I talked about it once, that when two people become 'one flesh' in marriage that there's a bond there that never really dies. I wonder now, if my father or my ex felt the same way.

It occurred to me then, that maybe this is why men are commanded to love their wives. St. Paul may have understood that women more naturally love unconditionally, and that men needed to be told that THIS is important and what you are supposed to do. Not that men don't know how to love, but rather that men don't think as naturally in terms of loving as Christ loved, even unto death.

That's my 'Thought for the Day'.

Rex the Wonder Dog

My parent's dear dog Rex died last week. He was nearly 10 and a combination of genetics, trauma, and age contributed to a ruptured disk in his back. Looking back, they could see over the course of a couple weeks how he had been slowing down, but it really came on suddenly last weekend.

If I miss him this much, I can only imagine the heartache my parents are going through.

I made a couple of tribute pages for my dear Rexy, Mr. Rex, Rex the Wonder Dog~

I'll probably do one more, with pictures of him with his people. I'm working on that one in my head right now.

I miss you dear Rex.

Superbowl Speed Scrap!

Superbowl Sunday TheStudio held 5 hours of speed scraps and I took part in all five!  It was so much fun to chat with these ladies and scrap along with them. Here's what I came up with-

This gave me a chance to scrap some of the pics from 2007 I've been wanting to work on. I'm finding it quite different to work on older photos like this. I'm so used to using 8 to 20 photos for a single event, taking up 3 to five pages...or more! Paring it down to a single page, or two page spread is challenging and makes me focus on what I really want to remember!

On Suffering

The readings from today began so very bleak and depressing.  We started off with Job in the throes of his despair-

Reading 1 Jb 7:1-4, 6-7

Job spoke, saying:
Is not man's life on earth a drudgery?
Are not his days those of hirelings?
He is a slave who longs for the shade,
a hireling who waits for his wages.
So I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?"
then the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle;
they come to an end without hope.
Remember that my life is like the wind;
I shall not see happiness again.

The Psalm was a word of hope, the refrain being-

Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.

Then on to the NT and Gospel readings where Paul speaks of the obligation he has to preach the Gospel, and what he must do and become in order to try and save us, and Jesus began his healing ministry.

I was haunted though by Job's words, "I shall never see happiness again". How often do I feel that way? How quick am I to forget that my God is a God of healing. That He heals not only the body (as in the Gospel today), but also He heals the brokenhearted.

Challenges over at Stuff to Scrap

With the way the days fell this month, Stuff to Scrap did Week 5 challenges for both Word of the Week and Challenge of the Week.  Here are my LOs for them-

I'm having so much fun using these challenges to scrap older photos! I'm especially glad that I finally had a chance to use the pic of the lamp that Mom made for me back when I got married. That was such a great lamp. Had the look of wood and wrought iron, but was actually plaster/ceramic. Reminds me of all the times Mom and I went to Ann's Originals and painted together. I should take pictures of some of the other things we've painted over the years. Hmmm...I wish I'd thought to have asked for the bird plate I did for Jeff's Mom way back when. I'm sure it got sold in the estate sale. It's funny the things that you remember when you start down 'memory lane'.